Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

ON THE INSPIRATION OF SACRED SCRIPTURE.

ON THE EXISTENCE OF INSPIRED SCRIPTURE IN GENERAL, AND ON THE TRUE NOTION OF INSPIRATION.

From the divine Tradition of the Old Testament, and from the doctrine of Christ Himself and of the Apostles, all the books and the parts of the books pertaining to Holy Scripture must be believed of divine authority in equal manner.

« It is certainly established, 1°, that at the time of Christ and the Apostles there existed with the Synagogue a collection of books in which the whole Jewish people was persuaded that only divine books received from the forefathers were contained; and it is likewise established, 2°, that Christ the Lord Himself and the Apostles of Christ confirmed this faith of the Jews, and commended to the Church the books comprehended in the collection under the name of Scripture, Holy Scripture, Sacred Letters as divine. »

We inquire concerning the specific name and signification, and also concerning the reality, of Holy Scripture. And we propose three things to be demonstrated in this thesis: a) that this name of Scripture among the people of God both before Christ and at the time of Christ and the Apostles, and in the mouth of Christ Himself and of the Apostles, was the proper name of one collection of books, signifying a sacred authority inhering in the writings alone and in all the writings comprehended under this name of Scripture; b) that this authority signified by the name of Holy Scripture was believed by the Jews to inhere in the books as wholly divine, as the word of God Himself; c) that Christ Himself and His Apostles supposed and taught this very divine authority of Scripture as the word of God.

I. It is of the highest moment in the present case that the signification of the name Scripture among the people of God and in the mouth of Christ and the Apostles, proper to one sole and whole collection of sacred books, be well understood. For if these two things are certain — that by the people of God, by Christ Himself and the Apostles of Christ, all and only the writings of one sacred collection were understood under the name of Scripture, and that by that very name a sacred authority was signified — then indeed it will be established from the very revelation given and confirmed by Christ and by the Apostles that this sacred authority, signified by the name of Scripture, inheres in all and only the writings demonstrated to pertain to that collection of Scripture.

But from these things themselves it is clear that, when we speak of the unity of a collection of books, the form of unity, i.e. the formal rationale under which all those books are understood to constitute one thing, is that one authority, equal in all. What is therefore to be proved by us first of all is this unity of a collection of books signified by the proper name of Scripture.

1°. As regards the existence of some most ancient collection of sacred books as in one body of religious law, it suffices to have noted the following.

a) That some of the books which from remotest antiquity have been designated by all Christians under the name of the Scriptures of the Old Testament existed with the Jews long before Christ — indeed from the very first origin of the books — in some one collection publicly received, is manifest from the very scope of the books, which shines forth from their internal character, so long as there is no question of the amplitude of the collection or of the number of books comprehended in it, all and only. For at least several of those books are so constituted that they manifestly form as it were one body destined for public use in the whole religious and civil life of that people. Cf. Exod. XVII. 14; XXIV. 4; Deut. IV. 1–15; XVII. 18. 19; XXVIII. 58–61; XXIX. 20; XXX. 10; XXXI. 9–13. 26. ¹

1. Kings X. 25; 3. Kings II. 3; 4. Kings XXII. 8. 10. ff.; Dan. IX. 2; 2. Esdras VII. 8; 1. Mach. I. 59. 60; 2. Mach. II. 13; Luke IV. 16. ff.; Acts XIII. 15. 27; XV. 21; 2. Cor. III. 14.

b) Mention together with the partition of one whole collection occurs in the prologue to the book of Ecclesiasticus, written in the third century before Christ². The partition is there commemorated three times as the Law, the Prophets, and the other books « handed down to us by our forefathers. » At the same time it is indicated fairly clearly (especially in the Greek text) that that whole collection — « the Law, the Prophets, and the rest of the other books » — existed at that time not only in Hebrew but already also in the Greek version³. Most similar is the distribution of the collection at the time of Christ into the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, Matt. XXII. 40; Luke XXIV. 27. 44.

Likewise with Philo the Jew (On the Contemplative Life, Frankfurt ed. 1691, p. 893) the division is into the laws, the discourses divinely uttered through the prophets, and the hymns. More distinctly Josephus, Against Apion, bk. I, n. 8, enumerates the books themselves according to the same distribution. I append the passage entire, because it will help often in what follows to have kept the whole context before our eyes. « With us, he says, there is by no means an innumerable multitude of books disagreeing and conflicting with each other; but there are only two and twenty books containing the description of all time, which are deservedly believed divine. Of these, five are of Moses, which contain both the laws and the tradition of the generation of mankind down to his (Moses') own death...... From the death of Moses down to the reign of Artaxerxes king of the Persians after Xerxes, the prophets who succeeded Moses wrote down the deeds of their own age in thirteen books; but the remaining four contain hymns to God and precepts of human life. From Artaxerxes down to our own memory the several things have indeed been committed to writing, but the books have not been held in equal authority with the preceding ones, because the succession of the prophets was not accurately ascertained (δια το μη γενεσθαι την των προφητων ἀκριβῆ διαδοχην.) But in fact it is manifest with what veneration we prosecute our books. For though so many ages have now flowed by, no one has dared either to add anything to them or to take away from them or to change them. But it is inborn in all Jews straightway from birth to believe these writings the dogmas of God and to inhere in them and for them, if need be, gladly to undergo death. » With this distribution of the books pertaining to one collection agrees also that observed in the Talmud and among the Massoretes and still now in the Hebrew Bibles, into the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa תּוֹרָה נְבִיאִיִם כְּתוּבִיִם. 2°. The unity of the collection as a sacred library set apart from all other less sacred books can already be understood from what has been said. But what must be demonstrated singly is that in which the hinge of the present question turns: that the form of unity was constituted by the people of God, by Christ the Lord Himself and His Apostles, in one equal sacred authority of all the parts of that collection, and that the formal rationale of sacred authority was expressed by the name of Scripture as proper to all and only the writings of that sacred library, so that to whatever document the name of Scripture or its twin is attributed, by this very fact it is designated as part of that one collection and as eminent in the sacred authority inhering in this whole and sole body of Scripture.

a) In the New Testament, by Christ and the Apostles, the books of the three classes (of the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms) of which we spoke, and the several texts of the books, are designated by the collective name of Scripture, Holy Scripture, and by the formula of citation it is written or another equipollent one, in such a way that it appears that this is the proper name of some one most well-known collection of books, and that it is a name of excellence by which an authority exempt and equal for all those books and texts of books is signified, so that the appellation itself is of itself held as a certain pledge and ineluctable demonstration of truth.

α) By Christ the Lord and the Apostles, under the name of Scripture or Holy Scripture as an authority which every faithful intellect serves, books from the several classes are cited more than thirty times — now from the first, now from the second, now from the third class — and by the same appellation of excellence appeal is made to the sacred books in general and without distinction about ten times. Likewise under the equipollent formula it is written appeal is made indiscriminately to books of diverse classes nearly ninety times. β) In the New Testament texts from diverse classes are adduced together as if from one and the same book under the common formula Scripture says. « Does not Scripture say: because from the seed of David (Ps. LXXXVIII. 5; CXXXI. 11), and from the town of Bethlehem (Mich. V. 2) comes Christ? » John VII. 42. « Scripture contains: behold I lay in Sion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious; and he that believes in him shall not be confounded (Is. XXVIII. 16.)... the stone which the builders rejected, the same is made the head of the corner (Ps. CXVII. 22), and a stone of stumbling and a rock of scandal » (Is. VIII. 14.) 1. Pet. II. 6–8. Texts from diverse books are adduced under the formula « one Scripture, another Scripture, » as in John XIX. 36. 37. Under the formula it is written in the Law places from books of diverse classes are cited⁴, and thus by the name of the Law, proper to one class, the whole collection is designated: John X. 34; XII. 34; XV. 25; Rom. III. 19; 1. Cor. XIV. 21. Moreover γ) all three classes are expressly numbered together under the one common name of the Scriptures, Luke XXIV. 44. 45. cf. 27. and 32. Finally δ) St Paul, 2. Tim. III. 15. 16, first calls the whole collection sacred letters (τα ιερα γραμματα with the article), then designates distributively each book of that collection as Scripture, and by this very fact as eminent in authority from divine inspiration, which is the property signified by the very name of Scripture. Of inspiration and of this text we shall speak more fully afterwards; meanwhile it is established that the name of Scripture is a proper name designating an exempt collection of books, eminent in authority, as one whole, in which the comprehended books, all of them, and the several texts of the books, are Scripture; and because they are parts or several sayings of Scripture, therefore to them all is asserted one and the same authority designated by the name of Scripture.

There existed therefore at the time of Christ and the Apostles one collection of sacred books, whose formal rationale of unity is drawn from nowhere else than from one authority in the whole and in all the parts; and this very inherent sacred authority the name Scripture in the mouth of Christ and the Apostles signifies.

b) Since Christ the Lord and the Apostles supposed and confirmed the faith of the Jews concerning the sacred Scriptures as true, we can, for understanding more distinctly the evangelical and apostolic doctrine itself, inquire what the Jews thought and believed concerning the unity and authority of Holy Scripture at the time when Christ and the Apostles held and approved their faith in this chapter as ratified; for this very faith will be the faith confirmed and handed down to the Church by Christ Himself and the Apostles. We shall take the exposition of that persuasion of the Jews, of the Hellenists from Philo and of the Palestinians from Josephus.

Philo, in the continuous and most ample use of the sacred books found in his works, appeals indiscriminately, whether to all or to single ones, as to the holy Scriptures, holy books, the sacred discourse, the most sacred letter, the prophetic discourse, prophetic sayings, the oracle, things uttered in holier wise, the oracle of God ἱερας γραφας, ἱερας βιβλους, ἱερον λογον, ἱερωτατον γραμμα, προφητικον λογον, προφητικα ῥηματα, χρησμον, το χρησθεν, τα ἱεροφαντησθεντα, λογιον του θεου (Eichhorn, Repertorium, vol. V, pp. 241–246). In the same way Josephus calls the sacred books those books of the holy Scriptures, the sacred letters ἱερας βιβλους, τας των ἱερων γραφων βιβλους, ἱερα γραμματα (Antiquities, preface, p. 5; bk. III, ch. 5, n. 2; bk. IV, ch. 8, n. 48; bk. X, ch. 4, n. 2; Against Apion, bk. II, n. 4, Haverkamp ed.). Similarly (as we saw done in the N. T.) what is in the books of Moses and in the books of Kings he comprehends under the common formula « that thus it is written in the holy books » Antiq. IX. ch. 2. n. 2. He vindicates the authority of the book of Joshua because it is « among the books kept in the temple » Antiq. V. ch. 1. n. 17; the authority of the book of Daniel because it is « in the holy Scriptures » Antiq. X. ch. 10. n. 3. But manifestly Philo and Josephus express nothing other than the common faith of the Jewish people; and therefore, from the doctrine of the Synagogue confirmed by Christ and the Apostles, there is no doubt concerning the unity of the collection, inasmuch as the authority of all the books comprehended under the name of Scripture is equal and exempt. What therefore is said and proved concerning the authority of Scripture universally, or concerning the several books of Scripture, demonstrates the authority of the whole collection and of all the books and all the parts pertaining to Scripture.

II. We have spoken of the unity of the Scriptures, and of the sacred authority inherent in them as the form of unity; but what and how great this authority signified by the very names Scripture, Holy Scripture, Sacred Letters is, has not yet been explained. We shall complete the declaration of this matter gradually in the theses that follow. Now we say that in the faith of the Jewish people, which Christ the Lord and the Apostles confirmed, there was believed, as a fundamental dogma, an authority of Scripture that is wholly divine.

We shall inquire into this faith of the Synagogue again from Josephus and Philo; for among the Jews of that age no more certain witnesses survive to us. The former, a Palestinian of priestly race, the latter a Hellenist Jew, evidently speak everywhere in such a way as to be understood to set forth concerning this chapter not their private opinion but the notorious and public faith of the whole people.

The very perpetual appellations of Holy Scripture, of the holy books, of the books of Scripture, and others which we commemorated just above, and the manner of appealing to those Scriptures as to a divine body of law, already sufficiently demonstrate that the books were held to be of altogether divine authority. Yet the proper force and signification with which they constantly designate those books by these names of excellence can be further determined by express testimonies.

a) The testimony of Josephus, whose words we cited above from bk. I, n. 8, Against Apion, is reduced to these points. a) Those books, he says — didactic and historical no less than prophetic — are believed and deservedly believed by his people, and not by himself alone, to be divine (τα δικαιως θεια πεπιστευμενα); it is as it were inborn in all Jews to believe these books and the doctrine of these books to be divine dogmas, so that for this faith they meet death with ready mind. b) This divinity is derived from the fact that all those books were written by prophets from divine inspiration, nor could there be room in that collection for any but prophetic books. After he said, ll. cc., Against Apion, nn. 6. 7, that among the Israelites the office of writing the history of the people belonged to « priests and prophets » alone, while the priestly race was always kept unmixed, he concludes: « nor was it lawful for all to write, nor is there any discrepancy in the writings; but to the prophets alone⁵, who indeed learned the most ancient and oldest things from divine inspiration (κατα την επιπνοιαν την απο του θεου), while they clearly described the things of their own time » (cf. Aug., City of God, XVIII, ch. 41). Whence γ) it is nefarious to add anything in those books, or to take away or to change. δ) This faith and veneration towards the divine books the Jews preserve insofar as the succession of the prophets — who both wrote the books and handed them down to the whole people — is manifest and ascertained.

b) Philo both demonstrates his nation's faith concerning their divinity by the mode, almost always mystical, in which he uses the Scriptures, and also expressly and frequently teaches that those books were written by prophets, « by whose mouth the father of all uttered oracles » (On Fugitives, p. 479); « who in the person of God uttered oracles, inspired » (On the Cherubim, p. 116); « who spoke, inspired by the deity » (On the Confusion of Tongues, p. 326). And all these things are referred not only to discourses uttered by mouth but to the writings themselves; whence he calls these writings « excellent oracles uttered by prophetic mouth » (On the Change of Names, p. 1066). A notable passage of Philo for the present matter is bk. III, On the Life of Moses, pp. 658, 659, where he calls the books rendered by the LXX interpreters into the Greek tongue « laws received from oracles, in which (in instituting a version) it would be nefarious to take away or add or transpose anything. » Hence he says it was necessary that the LXX interpreters in rendering those books should themselves also have prophesied: « as if seized by the deity they prophesied, not divers things diversely, but all the same names and words, as though some invisible one dictated to each »⁶. Philo has the history of the version from Aristeas (see in Gallandi's Bibliotheca, vol. II); but if that report concerning the manner of translating be not true, it could have had its origin from nowhere else than from the common faith of the whole people concerning the divinity of the written word in those books. Lest the version be esteemed of lesser dignity and authority than the Hebrew text, it seemed necessary to the Hellenists to suppose that the interpreters no less than the first writers had written by prophesying. Namely, just as the original text was by the common faith of the people of God believed to be prophecy, so the version either was, or was supposed by the Hellenists to be, prophetic in the generic signification of the word of which we spoke. Even if therefore the truth of the report concerning the inspiration of the interpreters can be denied, the testimony of the common faith of the people of God is adduced by a good many Fathers from the divinity of the Holy Scriptures: Justin, Exhortation to the Greeks, n. 13; Irenaeus III, ch. 21, al. 25; Clement of Alex., Stromata I, p. 342; Hilary, on the Psalms, preface, n. 8; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses IV, n. 34; Epiphanius, On Measures and Weights, ch. 6; Augustine, City of God XVIII, chs. 42, 43; Theodoret, on the Psalms, preface, vol. I, p. 396; Olympiodorus, Catena on Job, proem, Junius–Patrizio ed.; Paschal Chronicle, Paris ed., p. 172; George Syncellus, Chronography, Venice ed., pp. 216, 217.

« Nor is it strange, says Clement of Alex., ll. cc., that by the inspiration of the God who gave prophecy, the version too was effected as a Greek prophecy. » But Augustine there, ch. 42, after expounding the inspiration of the interpreters: « They had received, he says, so marvellous a gift of God that in that manner also the authority of those Scriptures — not as human but, as they were, as divine — was commended to the nations that would one day believe. » In the following chapter, 43, he declares with how easy business the discrepancy between the Greek and the Hebrew text can be reconciled. « Whatever is in the Hebrew codices and is not with the Seventy interpreters, the Spirit of God willed not to say through the latter but through the former prophets. But whatever is with the Seventy and is not in the Hebrew codices, the same Spirit willed to say through the latter rather than through the former, thus showing that both were prophets. » Whoever would wish to defend this opinion can call to their aid, besides the sentence of the Fathers, that a) about this time — from the first Ptolemies down to the later Maccabean times (under John Hyrcanus I or his sons; cf. 2. Mach. I. 10) — there were several inspired to write books, as Jesus Sirach, the writer of the book of Wisdom, the writers of the first and second books of Maccabees and of several Psalms; and that b) it is certain that the Greek edition was employed, and not rarely its readings diverse from the Hebrew text were adopted, by the Apostles themselves, and that by them the sacred books in that edition and with many readings diverse from the Hebrew were handed down to the Churches as inspired Scriptures. As regards the inspiration of the first writing itself of the books, from which that report has its origin, it remains whole and indubitable.

We do not yet inquire in this place concerning the specific notion of inspiration; meanwhile, however, from what has been said it is evident that the Jews at the time of Christ and the Apostles believed by common faith that Holy Scripture, and consequently all the books comprehended in it and the parts of the books (cf. n. I), were documents written under the supernatural operation of God in such a way that they infallibly contain the word of God, and are documents not human but divine, by believing which the believer believes God Himself.

III. This faith concerning the dignity and authority of Scripture among the Jewish people, which ruled and sustained its whole religious, political, and domestic life (cf. 1. Mach. XII. 9), Christ the Lord Himself and His Apostles not only do not disapprove or correct; but whereas on the one hand they suppose it to be thus believed and held by the Jews in their very use of the Scriptures, or expressly testify to it (John V. 39), on the other hand they themselves confirm the same faith, and connect their whole institution with it.

1°. Christ Himself confirms it when He appeals to those same Scriptures as to a testimony not human but divine, and of supreme and infallible authority, against the incredulous Jews. « But I receive not testimony from man... But I have a greater testimony than John. » This greater testimony He adduces threefold: the works which the Father gave Him to perfect, the voice of the Father, the Scriptures. This third testimony He declares at length. « Search the Scriptures, for you think in them to have life everlasting; and the same are they that give testimony of me... But if you believe not his (Moses') writings, how will you believe my words? » John V. 34–47. See John X. 34. 35; Matt. XXI. 42. 43; XXII. 29. 31, etc. He uses the same Scriptures as instruments of irrefragable authority for instructing faithful disciples; He inculcates the necessity that the Scriptures be fulfilled: Matt. XXIV. 15; XXVI. 24. 31. 54; Luke IV. 21; XVI. 29. 31; XVIII. 31; XXIV. 26. 27; John XIII. 18. To the tempter himself He opposes sentences of Scripture (it is written), Matt. IV. 4. 7. 10.

2°. The Apostles confirm the same faith by the most ample use by which they employ Scripture as the instrument of divine doctrine and divine authority. For from the testification and authority of Scripture they prove the divine mission and dignity of Christ Himself, and the authority and divinity of their own doctrine and preaching; which indeed they neither could nor would effect by other than divine testimonies. How widely this use of the Scriptures extends is plain even from the formulas of citation alone — Scripture says, Scripture contains, it is written, etc. — which occur in the N. T. far more than a hundred times. That the force of the argument drawn from this most ample use may be understood, it is to be considered in a threefold form.

a) The Apostles employ the Scriptures in the literal sense as the word of God (cf. Mark VII. 13. with 10; Rom. III. 2) which every intellect serves, and which avails not by force of arguments but by its own inherent authority alone; so that the argument of divine and revealed truth and the whole force of the demonstration is constituted in the formulas: Scripture says, it is written — Acts I. 16; III. 18, 21; VIII. 32. ff.; XV. 15; XVII. 2; XVIII. 28; Rom. I. 2; III. 10. ff.; IV. 23; IX. 17; X. 11; XV. 4; 1. Cor. XV. 3. 4; Gal. III. 8.

b) They use the texts of the Scriptures most frequently according to the typical sense as no less true and efficacious by the authority of the word of God for proofs than is the literal sense: Matt. II. 15. with Ps. XI. 1; Matt. XIII. 35. with Ps. LXXVII. 2; John XIII. 18. with Ps. XL. 10; John XIX. 36. with Exod. XII. 46; Acts I. 16. 20. with Ps. LXVIII. 26; CVIII. 8; Gal. IV. 22. 24; Heb. II. 13. with Is. VIII. 17. 18. But while the Apostles employ the words of the Scriptures in this typical signification after the example of Christ Himself, by that very fact they suppose and set them forth as a divine book, because it is established from the very nature of the typical sense that God alone can be its author. « The spiritual sense of Sacred Scripture is taken from this, says St Thomas, that things in the course of their running signify something else, which is taken through the spiritual sense. But things are so ordered in their course that such a sense can be taken from them only by Him whose providence governs things, who is God alone... Whence in no science invented by human industry, properly speaking, can there be found anything but the literal sense, but only in that Scripture of which the Holy Spirit is the author, while man is the instrument » — St Th., Quodlib. VII, a. 16; cf. 1, q. 1, a. 10; the distinguished Fr. Patrizi, Institutions on the Interpretation of Scripture, ch. 8; ch. 9, a. 4; ch. 10, a. 1. Moreover by the very mode in which the Apostles employ this kind of interpretation without declaration or preparation, they suppose and approve a certain persuasion and faith, both in the Jews and in the first Christians, that such typical senses are contained in Scripture, and consequently they suppose and confirm the faith concerning the divinity of Scripture, since this is the first foundation of the typical sense.

c) The Apostles demonstrate the divinity of the Scriptures, after the example of Christ Himself, by the manner of arguing with which they use them. For they sometimes press single incidental words and phrases as divine authority for demonstrating the weightiest things. In general Christ the Lord Himself enunciates the principle: « till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall not pass from the law till all be fulfilled » Matt. V. 18; Luke XVI. 17. Resting on this principle, the argumentations of the Apostles occur everywhere. They gather fundamental truths and propose them as demonstrated revelation from the particle yet once more, Heb. XII. 17; from the added word new Testament, ibid. VIII. 8. with 13; from the names Melchisedech, Salem, and from the omitted genealogy of this king, ibid. VII. 2. 3; from the singular number in thy seed, Gal. III. 16; from the adjective faithful πιστα: « I will give you the holy ⁷ of David faithful » Acts XIII. 34. Cf. Matt. XXII. 32. 43. with Mark XII. 36; 1. Cor. IX. 9. 10. with 1. Tim. V. 18. But such a manner of arguing in the weightiest matters evidently supposes and declares the judgment concerning the supreme authority and divinity of the instrument. Christ Himself therefore, and the Apostles of Christ, confirmed in manifold wise by their very use of these books the faith which we saw the Jews to have had concerning this collection of books; nor therefore can the divine authority of all the books and of the parts of the books, to whichsoever the proper name of Scripture belongs, be called into doubt without contradicting the authority and manifest doctrine of Christ Himself and of the Apostles.

The books of Scripture are inspired in such wise that God is the author of the books.

« Since books can be called divine for not one but several reasons, from Catholic doctrine preserved both in the apostolic writings and in perpetual Tradition the Scriptures must be believed divine in this sense, that they are books of God and God is the author of the books through His supernatural action upon the human writers, which by ecclesiastical usage derived from the Scriptures themselves is called inspiration. »

I. A book can be called divine a) by reason of its matter, in that it contains doctrine divinely revealed whether to the writer himself or to others, although the writing of that doctrine proceeded from merely human labor and industry. A book can b) be called divine by reason of the manner of writing under supernatural assistance of the Holy Spirit merely forestalling error infallibly, at least in those things that pertain to the principal scope of the book, although for the rest the writing is so from the human mind, will, and labor that the man himself writing must be deemed the principal author of the book in his own order. c) A book is divine in the stricter sense by reason of a writing which is efficiently from God through man, upon whom He operates for writing and in the writing in such wise that God Himself must be deemed the principal author of the book in the proper sense of this word. This supernatural and extraordinary operation of God is called inspiration.

We say in the thesis that, according to Catholic doctrine, the Scriptures must be believed divine not only in the first and second way but also in the third, which includes the two prior ones.

Assuredly this sentence, God is the author of the books of Holy Scripture, has been proposed and declared by the Church in solemn judgments. In the Council of Florence the decree for the Jacobites (cf. Pallavic. Hist. of the Council of Trent, bk. VI, ch. 11, n. 15) runs thus. « It most firmly believes, professes, and preaches (the most holy Roman Church) that the one true God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, is the creator of all things visible and invisible.... It professes one and the same God the author of the Old and the New Testament, that is of the Law and the Prophets and the Gospel, since by the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit the holy men of either Testament spoke, whose books it receives and venerates, which are contained under the following titles (all the canonical books are enumerated). This definition the Council of Trent repeats in sess. IV. « All the books both of the Old and of the New Testament, since one God is the author of either.... (the holy synod) receives and venerates.... But if anyone shall not receive the books themselves entire with all their parts, as they are customarily read in the Catholic Church and are contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition, as sacred and canonical.... let him be anathema. » If to anyone it should seem ambiguous in what sense God is here called the author of either Testament, let him attend to the context and compare the Florentine decree, which the Tridentine Fathers followed in their definition, as is established from the history of the Council (Pallavic. l. c.). In the context the clause, « since of either Testament one God is the author, » contains the reason why the books of either Testament are received by the Council as sacred and canonical. But this can only be the reason for receiving the books insofar as God is either directly called the author of the books of either Testament, or is called the author of all the institutions of either Testament in general and therein inclusively also of the books. In one or the other sense, therefore, God is declared by the Council the author of the books. But in the Council of Florence, to whose norm the Tridentine decree was conformed, the phrase « God is the author of either Testament, » is expressly declared in this sense, that He is understood as the author of the books of either Testament; for the annexed explanation, « i.e. the author of the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospel, » admits no other sense, which is indeed evident especially from the second term, where God is called the « author of the Prophets, » and from the manner in which He is said to be author in the last clause: « since by the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit the holy men of either Testament spoke, whose books (the Church) receives. » By the word spoke, taken from 2. Pet. I. 21, since speech uttered by mouth or by writing can be understood, that written speech is signified by the Council is plain from the context. The same faith (with the appellations of the classes of books slightly changed) is contained in the symbol of Catholic profession proposed to the Greeks and offered in the Second Council of Lyons by Michael their Emperor in the thirteenth century; a twin profession in the eleventh century was sent by Leo IX to Peter Bishop of Antioch (Hard. vol. VI, pt. I, p. 954); in the fourth century, in the Fourth Council of Carthage (or rather in the ancient collection of canons), the profession prescribed for Bishops to be consecrated (Hard. I, p. 978), which even now is uttered by Bishops in their consecration. The formula in all these documents is: « I believe (we believe) also that of the New and the Old Testament, of the Law and the Prophets and the Apostles, there is one author, God and almighty Lord. » More briefly but in the same sense it is said in the profession prescribed by Innocent III for those returning from the Waldensian heresy: « we believe the Lord to be one and the same author of the New and the Old Testament. » Now this doctrine of faith has been defined explicitly and in express words by the ecumenical Vatican Council. « But those (books of the Old and New Testament entire with all their parts) the Church holds as sacred and canonical.... for this reason, that having been written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit they have God as author, and as such have been handed down to the Church » Constit. Dei Filius ch. 2.

The formula, therefore, God is the author of the books of Holy Scripture, is dogmatic for expressing the manner in which Scripture must be held divine.

II. Now in the second question, how this doctrine of faith is contained in revelation, we say first that this is the doctrine of Christ Himself and of the Apostles, as exhibited in the evangelical and apostolic writings. We adduce a threefold argument from these writings: from the confirmation, often repeated by Christ and by the Apostles, of the faith of the Jews on this head; from the manner of citing the Scriptures; from express declaration.

1°. If what was adduced from Josephus and Philo in the preceding thesis n. II be weighed, it will be evident that this was the common faith and profession of the Jewish people at the time of Christ and the Apostles: that the writers of the sacred books were in their writing under a divine supernatural action in such wise that not only the doctrine and the things written must be deemed divinely proposed, but the writing itself of those things must be ascribed principally to the operation of God acting in man and through man. Both Josephus and Philo testify from the most certain faith of their people, whether settled in Palestine or among other peoples, that the sacred books are held as written by prophets through inspiration. But the notion of this inspiration for writing was this: that not only did the prophets receive doctrine divinely, which they then wrote down by their own effort, but the writing itself was through divine inspiration. This is evidently clear a) from the fact that they call the very action of writing prophecy — to write is to prophesy: the LXX interpreters in rendering the sacred letters, says Philo, « as if seized by the deity prophesied. » b) It is clear from the manner in which they say the writing was done, « as if by another invisibly dictating. » c) It is clear from the fact that they ascribe things formally as written, and thus the books themselves, efficiently to the divine operation; for they say the written texts themselves are « oracles uttered by prophetic mouth¹ ». Nay d) while they derive the supreme authority of the books from the fact that they were written by prophets, by that very fact they understand the writing itself to be by the prophets formally insofar as they are prophets. But the notion of a prophet both is and was among the Jews that of a man acting, speaking, or writing not in his own name and by his own natural powers, but in the person of God and by a supernatural divine impulse. « The prophets are interpreters of God, who uses them as organs for the manifestation of what He wills, » says Philo, On Monarchy I, p. 820; « the prophet brings forth nothing of his own, but everything alien by another dictating inwardly, » id., Who Is Heir of Divine Things, p. 517; « the prophet is an interpreter, with God inwardly dictating what must be said, » id., On Penance and Rewards, p. 918. cf. Exod. VII. 1 with IV. 16.

In declarations of this kind there must indeed be distinguished what pertains to the very essence of the charism under which the books are said to be written, which is the charism of prophecy, and there must be distinguished the special and accidental modes of the charism, which can be various and can be absent with the essence of the thing intact. To the essence it certainly pertains that prophetic speech or (for the matter in hand) prophetic writing be from a supernatural instinct of God in such wise that the book, by force of the very charism under which it was written, contain the written word of God, and thus that God through the man inspired by Him for writing be the author of the book. In this way, therefore, the Jews at the time of Christ and the Apostles believed the books of Scripture divine, in that they believed them written under divine inspiration and under the charism of prophecy². But Christ and the Apostles most luminously confirmed the faith of the Jews concerning the sanctity and authority of Scripture, as we showed in the preceding thesis n. III. This same doctrine, therefore, is that of Christ Himself and of the Apostles.

2°. Christ and the Apostles by the very manner of citing the Scriptures teach that the texts they adduce have God as author, formally insofar as they are written. For a) God is set as author of Scripture in the nominative, man as instrument in the oblique case.

« The Scripture (τὴν γραφὴν ταυτην) must be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David » Acts I. 16; « Lord, who by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of our father David Thy servant hast said: why have the Gentiles raged, » etc., ibid. IV. 23; « God promised (the Gospel) before through the prophets in the holy Scriptures » Rom. I. 2; « God appoints (defines) a day in David, saying, » etc., Heb. IV. 7; « God says, the Holy Spirit says, the Holy Spirit bears witness to us » Heb. I. 6 ff.; III. 7; X. 15, cf. VIII. 8; « (God) said in a certain place » Heb. IV. 4. What is in Mark XII. 26 — « have you not read in the book of Moses, at the bush (Exod. III. 6), how God said to him, saying: I am the God of Abraham, » etc. — is declared in Matthew to have been said by God to the very Jews to whom Christ was speaking. But these words were not said to those Jews except insofar as they are written; therefore God said these words, insofar as they are written; they are the written word of God: « have you not read what was said by God saying to you, I am the God of Abraham, » etc., Matt. XXII. 31. b) In inverted order but in the same sense it is declared that the human writer in the Holy Spirit said the written texts themselves. « How does David in the Spirit call (in the present tense, which cannot be understood except of words formally as written) Him Lord, saying: the Lord said to my Lord, » etc., Matt. XXII. 43; Mark XII. 36. That the sense is the same in this inverted form as when God is set in the nominative is of itself clear, and appears from the last hymn of David, where he declares what to speak in the Spirit, to say in the Holy Spirit, means for him: « The Spirit of the Lord, » he says, « spoke by me, and His word was through my tongue » 2. Kings XXIII. 2. Finally c) Scripture simply is put for God Himself speaking, which cannot be unless insofar as God is the author of Scripture and speaks through Scripture. « Foreseeing, Scripture (προϊδυσα δε ἡ γραφη) foretold to Abraham » Gal. III. 8. By these formulas of citation, therefore, the texts of Scripture, formally insofar as they are consigned in Scripture, are ascribed by Christ and by the Apostles to God as author. But what holds for the divinity of the several parts of Scripture holds also for all the books and for the collection of books to which belongs the excellence designated by the proper name Scripture, Holy Scripture (th. I). Therefore from the doctrine of Christ and the Apostles it is deduced that God is the author of the books of Scripture.

3°. The same is established from express apostolic doctrine. The chief passage is 2. Tim. III. 16. « All Scripture divinely inspired » πασα γραφη θεοπνευστος.

The word θεοπνευστος occurs nowhere else, neither in the New Testament nor in the LXX interpreters; but the reality itself and the description of the reality occur. From passages of this kind, therefore, we shall determine the general notion. The prophet is called a « spiritual man » (ανθρωπος πνευματοφορος אִישׁ הָרוּחַ) Hos. IX. 7. ³ a man of the Spirit, i.e. a man who has the Spirit and is held and moved by the Spirit. The end and effect of this action of the Holy Spirit upon man is often described. « The Spirit of God rushes, leaps upon the prophets »; He « clothes » them, to this end, that they announce to the people the will of God, the counsels of God. Hence the prophet is said to be as it were « the mouth of the Lord, » through whom namely God as mover speaks through His moved instrument: « thou shalt be as My mouth » Jer. XV. 19; cf. Exod. IV. 16. To the prophets God says: « My words in thy mouth » Jer. I. 9; V. 14; cf. Is. VI. 7; and what the prophets speak, « the mouth of the Lord hath spoken » Is. LVIII. 14, and elsewhere. Consequently what they speak in virtue of the Holy Spirit is said to be and is not the word of man but the « word of the Lord » Num. XXIV. 2; 1. Kings X. 6, 10; 2. Kings XXIII. 2; Mich. III. 8; Zach. VII. 12; 2. Esd. IX. 30. In this proper sense, therefore, the prophets are everywhere said to speak « in the Spirit of God, » i.e. through the Spirit of God as efficient cause. Most clearly, in 2. Pet. I. 21, to speak by human will is opposed to the speech which the holy men of God utter inspired, or singularly moved and actuated (φερομενοι) by the Holy Spirit; the exclusion of the former and the affirmation of the latter constitutes the proper character of inspiration in man, and terminatively effects prophecy. « For prophecy came (ἠνέχθη) not at any time by the will of man, but the holy men of God spoke inspired (ὑπο πνευματος ἁγιου φερομενοι) by the Holy Spirit. »

From these things it sufficiently appears that inspiration actively is the very supernatural action of God upon man by which He raises, advances, and moves him to manifest or utter what God wills; passively it is the very state of the man so affected; finally the word itself which the inspired man utters, whether by symbolic action or by speech or by writing, is and is called inspired terminatively, insofar as it is the effect of the divine operation and of active inspiration. Consequently when Scripture itself is called inspired, inspiration or the action of God must be understood terminatively as the efficient cause of Scripture, and Scripture as the effect of God inspiring.

With this notion of inspiration now demonstrated⁴, Paul the Apostle teaching that Scripture is inspired must necessarily be understood of the supernatural operation of God for effecting Scripture itself, or of inspiration considered terminatively. The Apostle therefore teaches that Scripture is the work and effect of the supernatural divine action upon inspired men, and hence that God through men inspired by Him is the efficient cause and author of Scripture.

As for the truth of what we have said, it matters little whether in Paul's words the term divinely inspired (θεοπνευστος) is taken as the predicate, as most probably in the Greek text⁵, or as an adjunct to the subject declaring its property, as in the Vulgate version: « all Scripture divinely inspired is profitable for teaching, » etc. For in either way the property which is already implicitly comprehended in the very name Scripture is explicitly affirmed of that same Scripture by adjective or by predicate, namely that it is inspired.

For the present matter it likewise matters little whether the subject « all Scripture » is taken collectively for the whole of Scripture, or distributively, as the Greek phrase πασα γραφη without the article persuades, for every writing to which the name Scripture belongs as proper and as a name of excellence (cf. th. I). For in the former way the whole collection immediately, and hence all things comprehended in the collection, would be said to be inspired; in the other way inspiration (namely to be inspired terminatively) is immediately affirmed of all and each which have the name of excellence Scripture; but this name, as is established from thesis I, is proper not only to the entire collection but also to the parts and even to the single texts pertaining to that collection. ⁶ Read the distinguished Fr. Patrizi's Commentation on the Divine Scriptures, §. V.

III. The doctrine concerning this inspiration of the Scriptures, that God must be believed the author of the sacred books, has been proposed and declared in manifold ways in the perpetual and universal ecclesiastical preaching of Christian antiquity. From the very use and manner in which appeal has always and by all been made to the Scriptures it could easily be demonstrated to have been from the apostolic age a dogma beyond controversy, not only that the word of God is contained in the Scriptures, but also that the word, formally as written, is from God as author. Here, however, we shall propose only the express doctrine, because it is both luminous and most strongly fortified against all exceptions. We shall exhibit the unanimous doctrine of Christian antiquity in such wise that not only the reality itself of the inspiration of Scripture be demonstrated by the authority of universal agreement, whether it be, but also from the ecclesiastical preaching itself all the elements be proposed for the distinct notion of the inspiration of the books, as far as we can attain it, what it is. Whence in what follows, where we shall at last deduce the final conclusion concerning the notion of inspiration, we shall appeal to this premised doctrine both of Scripture itself and of the Fathers. We reduce the whole explication of the Fathers to these heads.

1°. The Scriptures were written through the Holy Spirit, through the operation of the Holy Spirit; therefore they are letters of God, the letter of God to men. Among the heads of doctrine which are in manifest ecclesiastical preaching, Origen sets « that through the Holy Spirit the Scriptures were written » preface On Principles, n. 8, cf. n. 4. Jews and Christians confess the Bible « to be written by the Holy Spirit » id., Against Celsus V, n. 60. « The divine Scriptures, as written by the Holy Spirit, contain a great hidden treasure » Chrysost., On Genesis, hom. 21, n. 1. It matters not what man wrote the several psalms, « since it is manifest that all were written through the operation of the divine Spirit » ἐκ τῆς τοῦ θεοῦ πνεύματος ἐνεργείας, Theodoret, preface to the Pss. In all the books of the Scriptures there is a perfect agreement, « because in their writers there was the same Holy Spirit » Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, bk. III, n. 12; bk. II, n. 9; Athanasius, preface to the Pss., nn. 2, 9, 10; and because « not without reason, when they wrote these things, did so many and so great peoples believe God to have spoken to them or through them » Aug., City of God XVIII, ch. 41, n. 1. Among the errors of Theodore of Mopsuestia recensed and condemned in the V synod this also is: that the books of Solomon « were written not through prophetic grace but through the grace of prudence, which is evidently other than the former »; that Theodore reprobated the book of Job « against its writer, that is the Holy Spirit, saying that pagan wisdom wrote this book »; that « the book of the Canticle of Canticles must not be praised as having prophetic dictation for the goods of the Church » Council V, Act IV, nn. 63, 66, 68, 71, Hard. III, pp. 86 ff.

Universally the Scriptures are « the letter of almighty God to His creature » Aug., Serm. II on Ps. 90, n. 1; Enarr. on Ps. 149, n. 5; Gregory the Great, bk. IV, ep. 31 to Theodore. « God as it were sent letters to those far absent; these letters indeed God gave, Moses bore » (God the author of the letter, Moses the carrier) Chrysost., On Genesis, hom. II, n. 2.

2°. The Scriptures were spoken by God. Assuredly « the Scriptures are the truthful sayings of the Holy Spirit » Clement of Rome, ep. I to the Cor., n. 45; « the Scriptures were spoken by the Word of God and His Spirit » Iren., bk. II, ch. 38, n. 2; « they are unbelievers who deny that the Scriptures were spoken by the Holy Spirit » the Anonymous (held to be Hippolytus) against the Artemonites, in Euseb., H. E., bk. V, ch. 28; « God Himself willed to teach through the Holy Scriptures » Hippolytus, against Noetus, n. 9; « meanwhile the Gospel and the Apostle shall be praised as divine oracles⁷ » Theonas of Alexandria (Routh, Sacred Remains, vol. III, p. 443).

3°. God founded, gave the Scriptures. « The voice of God, who gave the Scriptures, is received as certain demonstration » Clement of Alexandria, Stromata II, p. 362; « God, having first spoken through the prophets, then through Himself, afterwards through the Apostles, also founded Scripture, which is called canonical, of the highest authority » Augustine, City of God XI, ch. 3; cf. XVIII, ch. 41. In the prologue of Pope Gelasius to his decree « on books to be received or not to be received, » as it stands in the Lucca codex, the Pontiff says: « for discussing or understanding the Scriptures, which in the New or Old Testament published by many (accepimus [we have received], or novimus [we know], or some other word has fallen out), it befits us to keep that apostolic saying: prophecies, he says, despise not, but prove all things; that we may more fully believe them to have been founded by the operation of God » (Mansi, Supplement to the Councils, vol. I, p. 357).

4°. The operation and perfect veracity of the Holy Spirit is extended to all even the least parts of Scripture. « We who extend the perfect exactness of the Spirit even to a chance apex and line⁸ do not concede, for it is not lawful, that even the least things were set down by the writers rashly » Gregory Nazianzen, or. II (On His Flight), n. 105, vol. I, p. 60. Similar things are found in Origen, On Principles, bk. IV, n. 7; Jerome, ep. 27, al. 102, n. 1, to Marcellus; preface to the comment. on Philemon, vol. VII, p. 742; Augustine, ep. 82, al. 19, to Jerome, nn. 3–7; Chrysostom, On Genesis, hom. 15, n. 1; hom. 42, n. 2, etc.

5°. Comparatively the writing is ascribed to the Holy Spirit, and denied to be human. « The converse of Christ in the flesh demonstrated that the Law and the Prophets were written by heavenly grace, and that the writings believed to be the words of God are not the writings of men » Orig., On Principles, bk. IV, n. 6. ⁹ Our authors « wrote not according to art, but according to grace, which is above all art; for they wrote what the Spirit gave them to speak » Ambrose, ep. 8 to Justus, n. 1. « Human reason did not discover these letters, but heavenly virtue infused them into holy men » Cassiodorus, On the Institution of Divine Letters, ch. 13, 14.

6°. This must be understood in this way, that God is the principal author of the books, while men are the instruments of God for the writing of the books. The sacred writers had no need of artifice of speech, « but only to exhibit themselves pure to the operation of the divine Spirit, so that the very divine plectrum, coming down from heaven and employing holy men as it were as the instrument of harp or lyre, might reveal to us the knowledge of divine and heavenly things » Justin, Exhort. to the Greeks, n. 8; Athenagoras, Legation for the Christians, n. 9; cf. Hippolytus, against Noetus, nn. 11, 12. « While we hold the Holy Spirit as author, when we seek the (human) writer (of the sacred books), what else do we do than, reading the letter, inquire about the pen? » Gregory the Great, preface to Job, nn. 2, 3 (cf. above, Theodoret).

7°. This special conjunction of men with God inspiring for writing is declared from the analogous conjunction in the supernatural order of the members of Christ with Christ the head, and through it is illustrated the doctrine how God is the principal author of the books, while men are the instruments of God for writing. For the Prophets and Apostles were also formally for writing the books and in the writing members of Christ the head. « Therefore when they wrote what He showed and said, it must by no means be said that He wrote it not, since His members wrought what, with the head dictating, they learned. For whatever He willed us to read concerning His deeds and sayings, He commanded to be written by them as by His own hands. Whosoever shall have understood this fellowship of unity will not otherwise receive what he shall have read in the Gospel as narrated by the disciples of Christ than as if he beheld the very hand of God, which He bore in His own body, writing » Augustine, On the Agreement of the Evangelists, bk. I, n. 54.

The Fathers whose luminous doctrine and testification we have adduced are from diverse Churches, from every age from the first to the seventh century. From centuries I–III: Clement of Rome, Justin M., Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, the Anonymous of Eusebius, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Theonas. From centuries IV–VII: Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Chrysostom, Theodoret, the FF. of the V Council, Cassiodorus, Gregory the Great. The agreement is moreover declared and confirmed through the symbols of faith and the solemn judgments which we cited in n. I.

You see, however, that in this perpetual and universal ecclesiastical preaching nothing else is contained but the declaration and explication of the doctrine of Christ and the Apostles which we demonstrated to be expressed in the evangelical and apostolic writings: that the Scriptures are efficiently the books of God, and that God is the author of the books of Scripture. The universal agreement of the apostolic succession therefore demonstrates that what we have said is the true sense of the evangelical and apostolic doctrine.

The notion of inspiration is declared more distinctly through analysis of the dogmatic formula: God is the author of the books of Sacred Scripture.

« With analysis instituted of the revealed doctrine by which we profess God to be the author of the sacred books or Scripture, and with the declarations of that same doctrine contained in the monuments of Christian antiquity compared together, inspiration for writing the sacred books seems to have consisted essentially in the freely given charism of illustration and motion, by which the mind of the inspired men would conceive for writing the truths which God willed to hand down to the Church through Scripture, and the will would be borne to consigning to writing all of them and only them, and thus elevated man, as an instrumental cause under the action of God the principal cause, would execute the divine counsel with infallible veracity. Whence, with the distinction made between inspiration and assistance, the former must be said to have pertained necessarily to the truths and the formal word, the latter also to the signs and the material words. »

For the declaration of the thesis we must first define more distinctly certain preliminary notions, both concerning the signification of the name author of a book, and concerning the elements constituting the formal rationale of a book.

1°. The name of author taken by itself and apart has indeed a generic signification, and by that very fact comprehends several significations distinct from each other in species. For generically he is called author from whom something has its origin as from an efficient cause. But since efficiencies are most diverse, and effects no less diverse, it comes about that the name of author takes on significations specifically diverse from each other. The specific signification is determined either from the context or more simply by epithets by which the species of the efficiency and of the effect is defined. In this way the complex term author of a book has a ratified and fixed specific signification. For the clarity of the notion a) we distinguish the first cause without whose concurrence the second cause cannot act, then the cause per se, which is also called principal, namely acting by its own inherent power, in distinction from the instrumental cause, which acts not by power inherent in itself but only from motion (as they say), i.e. from a derived and transient power of the principal cause. Now when author of a book is spoken of, there is never understood efficiency merely through the general course of the first cause, nor in the proper sense the efficiency of the instrumental cause; but there is always signified the cause per se, which can be first or second. But the relation between these causes is of this kind. If God (the first cause) is called author (and therefore cause per se) of a book, there is excluded the second cause acting as cause per se, i.e. by its own power inherent in itself; whence conversely if man (the second cause) is and is called in the proper sense author of a book, by that very fact it is denied that God (the first cause) is author of the book, yet there is not excluded, as is self-evident, the general concurrence of the first cause, which in no way imports that God is author of the book, unless, speaking absurdly, you would call God the author of all books. But whether God or man be author of a book, in neither hypothesis is there excluded the instrumental cause through which the principal cause (God or man) acts and effects the existence of his book. b) Looking to the effect, by the name of book we understand some ampler¹ context of sentences or senses consigned to writing. Whence the signification of the complex term author of a book is this: that he be author (cause per se) both of the conception of the senses for writing² and of their consignation in writing.

2°. As regards the formal rationale of a book, which we said is the other necessary preliminary notion, in any book or written document a) there must be considered the ideas and judgments and their whole complex, which are signified in the book by words and propositions, and are called by some things and sentences, by others senses, in our thesis truths. For since there is question of ideas and judgments or sentences which are from God, they cannot be other than truths, at least under that reflected rationale under which and in which sense they are written in the book from the intention of the author. From the truths and senses themselves b) are distinguished the signs by which the truths and senses are expressed, under a grammatical and rhetorical rationale, to which there can also pertain the order and connection of things. This, which we can call the διαταξιν or disposition of the book, is sometimes intended by the author per se as his own sense to be expressed, sometimes does not so pertain to the intention of the author, but can hold itself diversely with the whole truth and the integral senses preserved, whose expression through his book the author intends. Whence c) there must be considered the end of the work, or the end to which the author willed his book from the very character of the book to be directed; for from this it depends what, of all things comprehended in the book, is or is not intended per se by a wise author.

Now all those things which the author intends in the book per se, and without which the book would not be such as the author willed it to be, constitute the very formal rationale by which, imparted by him, the book is and is deservedly judged to be the work of this author. But there are other things which indeed in one way or another must in general be present, since without them the form intended by the author could not be expressed; yet they can hold themselves now in one way now in another, without the book ceasing to be such as the author willed it to be, since they are not intended per se by the author for the scope of his book, nor therefore are necessarily determined by him singly. These therefore, although they are not determined by the author to hold themselves either in this way or in that, yet so long as they are apt to express what the author in his book intends per se, do not prevent the book from truly being of this author. Therefore we call this the material part of the book, in distinction from the formal rationale by which the work of this author is constituted ³.

To explain the matter by some concrete application, e.g. in a code of laws, in a didactic book for teaching speculative or practical truth, in a historical book destined to teach some other truth through narrated facts, what from the scope of such books is intended per se, and what therefore constitutes the formal rationale, are the senses or things and sentences; but the whole of what we referred to the rationale of signs, not excepting the very disposition of order, is not necessarily intended per se, and therefore can hold itself as material part. Yet these very things which pertain to the material part, the signs themselves I mean, must be apt to express the intended truths; otherwise the very formal element of the book could not be preserved. I said the choice of signs can pertain to the material rationale; for if at any time from the scope of the book the signs themselves be intended per se, in that hypothesis they would indeed pertain to the formal rationale of the book. Thus in certain dogmatic passages, especially those containing supernatural mysteries, certain words and formulae for expressing the concept of the mystery can be, in keeping with the scope of such passages, formal; likewise in a book whose scope were rhetorical and aesthetic, besides the things and sentences the style also would pertain to the formal or essential rationale of the book; no less would the disposition of order in a history destined to teach the chronological succession of things be from its very scope intended per se, at least as far as would be needed for chronological truth, and therefore pertinent to the formal rationale of the book.

I. With these preliminaries laid down, it is clear that no one can be in the true sense author of a book unless he effects that at least what is formal in the book, conceived by him in mind, be consigned to letters. That anyone therefore be author of a book through another as through an instrumental cause yet acting with reason and will, it is necessary that the other, with himself suggesting, conceive in mind for writing, and with himself moving, be borne in will to writing all and only those things which, pertinent to the formal rationale of such a book, he himself as principal author had preconceived to be written. For if one of these be lacking, he cannot be author of the book. He is certainly not author of a book who indeed communicates his senses to another, yet not in order to their being written, nor induces the other to write them; nor would he acknowledge himself author of a book if what he himself willed to be comprehended as formal in the book the other did not receive in whole; nor is he author at least of the whole book and simply, if to the things and sentences intended by him in his book the other of his own motion superadds something; certainly he is not author of this superadded part.

When therefore we profess God author of the sacred books, but author through inspired men, by this dogmatic formula there is expressed what divine operation is and what is not essential, in such a way that, it being posited, God is truly author of the book, and therefore the book is divinely inspired, but it being denied, God is denied to be author of the book, and consequently the book is denied to pertain to divinely inspired Scripture.

1°. In that formula therefore there is positively affirmed that God effected that the truths which He Himself comprehended in mind to be handed down to the Church through Scripture, the mind of the inspired man would conceive to be written, and the will would be borne to writing all of them and only them.

I have said that all and only those truths are consigned in the inspired book which God as author of the book comprehended in His mind and will to be written. For if there were written in the book by man even a true sentence which God did not comprehend in His counsel to be written, and which therefore He did not inspire to man for writing, much more if in a book of Scripture — as certain recent writers have dared to affirm concerning what we call things revealed per accidens — there were contained any sentences in themselves not true⁴; of such sentences God would certainly not be author, nor therefore would they be the word of God, but altogether a human word. But a) when the holy Vatican Council, after other twin definitions of Councils and Pontiffs, declares that the books of the Old and New Testament are held by the Church herself as sacred and canonical « for this reason, that, having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as author, » this writing is certainly understood simply, and therefore according to all the sentences consigned in the book by the inspired writer; for inspiration is asserted not for an interrupted writing and at intervals but for the whole writing. b) When the Church professes God the author of the sacred and canonical book, this sacred and canonical extends no less widely than the signification of the name Scripture. But to Scripture are reckoned all and only the sentences consigned in the book by the inspired man, and further, in evangelical and apostolic doctrine and in the common preaching of the Fathers, the single sentences expressly, because they too are Scripture, are attributed to God as author, both of which we demonstrated in theses I and II. Therefore in the profession of the Church and in her synodal formula, God is author of the sacred and canonical book, God is understood as author of the book according to all the parts which are Scripture, and therefore author of all the sentences which were first consigned to the book by the inspired man, since these, all and only, are Scripture.

2°. From the same notion of author of a book there is then deduced what, even as regards the formal part of the book of which we now speak, is not required. a) It is not required that the very truths which God willed to be consigned in the Scriptures should not have been or could not have been already known to the inspired man from elsewhere. For the preceding knowledge of the man cannot be a reason why God could not comprehend those truths in His counsel to be handed down through Scripture to the Church, and why by His supernatural operation He could not effect that man conceive in mind and will, for consigning them to writing, those very truths known to him from elsewhere.

b) By the same reason there are not excluded industry, study, and aids — e.g. of documents and witnesses — employed by man for conceiving the things and sentences or truths, provided the supernatural operation and direction of God effects that the mind of the inquiring man conceive for writing all and only those senses, and likewise that the will be supernaturally moved to writing all and only those same things, which God comprehended in His counsel to be written.

c) If by the name of revelation be understood the manifestation of a hidden thing, it is clear from what has been said that in inspiration revelation is not an essential element; for there can be truest inspiration whether for speaking or for writing apart from revelation taken in that strict sense. It depends therefore on the very nature and character of the inspired truth, or on the way in which the truth holds itself toward the man to be inspired, whether inspiration includes revelation understood in that sense or not⁵.

But if revelation be understood in the less strict yet most frequent sense, the proposition of truth made by God Himself, then assuredly every inspiration for writing the sacred books was revelation, which indeed took place first internally in the mind of the inspired man, that thereafter through writing it might be proposed to the Church as the word of God, and constitute an object of faith both for the inspired man himself and for others, when as an inspired word it had been sufficiently proposed.

II. That the divine operation which we have explained as necessary in order that a book may truly be and be called a book of God as author, and without which God would not be author of the book, is not required in the same way as regards the material part of the book, seems clear from the very notion of author of a book. For from what has been said God is author of a book insofar as by His operation on the mind and will of the writing man He effects that he write all and only those things which God Himself in writing the book intended per se. But this will be obtained however those things hold themselves which are not intended per se by the author — the signs, I mean, and the rest which we said constitute the material part of the book — provided these be apt to express the sense intended by the author. But this very thing demonstrates that not that divine operation which is properly called inspiration, and which is required for the formal part of the book, is necessarily extended also to the signs and to the other things of the material part; yet that some divine operation is necessary also for the material part, that God may infallibly be author of the book. What this divine operation is, and what it is not, we now inquire.

1°. As regards the signs or words, it is evident that neither can the things themselves, i.e. the senses of the principal author, be expressed in writing unless signs apt to express the sense be chosen. If therefore God by His inspiration of things and senses so acts on the inspired man for writing that the written book infallibly by force of the very divine operation truly and sincerely contains the senses of God, there must cohere with inspiration itself, or be included in it, such a divine operation that the writing man not only actually choose, but also infallibly choose apt signs to express the inspired things and sentences truly and sincerely, and thus be rendered infallible in the apt choice of signs and of the other things pertaining to the material part. For a man inspired indeed in mind and will to write the senses of God, but left wholly to himself in the choice of signs, would remain fallible in expressing the inspired concepts; and by this very fact it would not infallibly follow that the book written under such inspiration is Scripture inspired terminatively and the word of God. But that it be believed to be infallibly the word of God, no other argument was ever sought than that the human writer was inspired. As therefore with active inspiration there is infallibly connected the terminative inspiration (the inspired being) of the work itself, so in the notion of active inspiration there is included a divine operation by which man is rendered infallible in expressing the inspired concepts, i.e. in the very choice of apt signs and terms.

2°. From what has been said it is now clear what this divine operation is which we say is connected with inspiration. The scope of the sacred books, at least in most, is such that the formal rationale of the books for this scope is not changed if the same things and sentences be expressed in other words, in another style, provided the terms, which can be now these now those, be employed suitable and corresponding to the things. There pertains therefore, at least in most, not to the formal rationale but to the material rationale of the Scriptures that the sentences be expressed in these rather than in other equipollent terms. « Nor should we think the gospel to be in the words of the Scriptures but in the sense, not on the surface but in the marrow, not in the leaves of speech but in the root of reason » — St Jerome, on Gal. I. 11. 12, vol. VII, p. 386. Now for anyone to be author of a book there is indeed required that all that which for the scope of the book constitutes its formal rationale be from him as from the principal author; but it is not required that in the same way there be from him what in the book for its scope holds itself materially and does not constitute its proper rationale. Therefore one can through another as through an instrumental cause be the truest author of a book without himself supplying the terms in the individual and the style and the whole grammatical and rhetorical construction. Yet that it may nevertheless through the supply of things and sentences be rendered certain that the book to be written will be his as of the principal author, it is necessary that he preclude error of the writer in the choice of apt signs.

Therefore from the notion of inspiration, or from the fact that God is author of the Scriptures through human writers in such a way that from the very action of God on the inspired men it is infallibly certain that the Scriptures are books of God as author: a) in most cases, where namely the choice of these signs rather than other equipollent ones holds itself materially, there is no reason for affirming that God Himself by a supernatural prevenient action supplied and determined in the individual the signs and the manner of writing. There is yet b) an evident reason for affirming the assistance of God, by which He so stood by the human writers in their very choice of suitable signs that in expressing the inspired concepts truly and sincerely they were wholly infallible. c) In this assistance and direction as regards the very manner of speech there is included the grace of speech, « that one speak (write) effectively for instructing the intellect, for moving the affect, for bending the hearer (or reader) » ⁶, as St Thomas explains it, 2. 2, q. 117, a. 1. But if d) for the scope of some passage or context the very words and style in the individual pertained to the formal rationale, then indeed from the very notion of inspiration and of author of a book it would be deduced that the words and style were supplied by God no less than the things and sentences. But because such formal rationale can with greatest difficulty be determined, and the singular force, efficacy, and profundity of the very words, and what the Fathers proclaim concerning the value of the same individual words of Scripture, pertain partly more to the things signified and to the formal word, and partly are sufficiently explained from the assistance of the Holy Spirit in the selection of words; therefore from the very notion of inspiration, unless it be proved from elsewhere, the divine supply of words in the individual in single passages can scarcely be discerned and established.

The order and disposition of things for the diverse scope of a book sometimes constitutes the formal part and pertains to the very senses of the author, sometimes is reckoned to style. According to this diversity the order of things in the former hypothesis will be referred to inspiration properly so called, in the latter, according to what was just demonstrated, to divine assistance.

3°. From what we have said there is demonstrated only by a negative argument that divine suggestion and as it were dictation of words in the individual is not essential in the notion of inspiration; and therefore that such dictation of words cannot be gathered from the fact that God is author of Scripture. From this very fact it ought to be presumed, where the opposite is not demonstrated, that it really so happened, and that God, who disposes all things sweetly, permitted that men, already illumined with divine senses and supernaturally moved to write them, should themselves, according to the diverse character and erudition of each, under divine assistance find and select the signs of the inspired ideas. For the rest, there are also positive arguments from which it is deduced that at least for the most part the inspired authors in selecting words and in the grammatical and rhetorical manner of writing were aided and fortified by divine assistance only, and were not divinely determined to one thing by dictation received. These arguments, the weightiest, are three.

a) Evident in the sacred books is a diversity of utterance and style corresponding to the diverse character and erudition of the writers. « Concerning Isaias it must be known, says St Jerome, that in his speech he is eloquent, since (behold the reason) as a noble man and of urbane eloquence, nor having anything of rusticity admixed in his speech. » On the contrary, « Jeremias indeed among the Hebrews seems rougher in speech than Isaias and Osee and certain other prophets, but equal in senses, since he prophesied by the same Spirit. Moreover the simplicity of speech befell him from the place in which he was born; for he was an Anathothite, which is even now a village » — Jerome, Preface to Isaias and Jeremias.

b) While diverse sacred writers — e.g. several Evangelists — report not only the same deed done but also the same discourse spoken by others, e.g. by Christ the Lord, yet they use diverse words, although it is certain that he whose words they profess to recite said the same thing not in diverse words but in one manner only. Thus the words which Christ used in the institution of the most holy Eucharist are reported by four sacred writers: Matt. XXVI; Mark XIV; Luke XXII; 1 Cor. XI. But each exhibits the same words of Christ a little differently; yet so that Mark agrees more with Matthew, since he is believed and proved by the learned to have had his written Gospel before his eyes, while conversely Luke approaches nearer to Paul, whose disciple and follower he was. The reason of this discrepancy St Augustine explains at length as the same which we have stated (On the Consensus of the Evangelists, bk. II, nn. 27. 28). « If therefore it be asked, he says, which words John the Baptist rather said, whether those which Matthew, or those which Luke records him to have said, or those which Mark... it must in no way be labored over by him who prudently understands that the very sentences are necessary for knowing the truth, in whatever words they were set forth. For that one holds one order of words and another another is by no means contrary; nor is it contrary if one says what another omits. For as each remembered, and as it was in each one's heart to set forth the same sentence either more briefly or more at length, so it is manifest that they set it forth. » To one perchance objecting that « to the Evangelists by the power of the Holy Spirit it ought to have been granted that they differ neither in the kind of words nor in order nor in number, » the holy doctor answers that this ought not to have been done, both for other reasons and « at the same time also in order that, what pertains most to faithful doctrine, we might understand that not so much of words as of things is the truth to be sought or embraced, when we approve those who, while they do not use the same speech, yet do not disagree in things and sentences, as having stood in the same truth. » So Augustine, l. c.

c) Finally the writer of 2 Machabees, whom all Catholics believe to have written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, attributes style and turn of speech quite manifestly to himself and to the manner and faculty of his own erudition. « I also, thus he concludes the book, will here make an end of speech. And if indeed well and as befits history, this I myself would wish; but if less worthily, it must be pardoned me » (in Greek: but if meanly and indifferently, as much as I could attain εἰ δὲ εὐτελως καὶ μετριως, τουτο ἐφικτον ἤν μοι) 2 Mach. XV. 39. Read on these things the cited opuscule of the learned Father Patrizi (On the Divine Scriptures, § IV.) ⁷.

III. The remaining things which we enunciated in the thesis need only recapitulation.

1°. Analysis of the testimonies which, whether evangelical and apostolic or from the holy Fathers, we adduced in the preceding thesis, will demonstrate that in them there is always either supposed or expressed a divine operation both on the intellect and on the will of the inspired men. For on the one hand a) God is declared to have spoken the Scriptures through the prophets; Scripture is commended as spoken, written, composed, infused into minds by the Holy Spirit, by the operation of the Spirit, by heavenly grace; the sacred writers are said not to have had need of human art, but as instruments to have yielded themselves to the operation of the Spirit; on the other hand b) the sacred writers themselves are said in the Holy Spirit, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, prophesying — i.e. driven by the supernatural operation of the Spirit (ὑπὸ πνεύματος ἁγίου φερόμενοι) — to have put forth, and thus to have written, the sacred texts as they are in Scripture; whence it comes about c) that the very books and texts which the Holy Spirit inspiring men by His charism, and the inspired men in the power of the Holy Spirit, wrote, are all and singly divinely inspired Scripture (πᾶσα γραφὴ θεόπνευστος) and the word of God. But that active inspiration of the Holy Spirit upon men, that they be prophets (in the broader biblical sense) for writing the word of God, cannot be understood except as a supernatural operation on the mind for conceiving the senses of God and a motion on the will for writing them; nor can this state of passive inspiration in the prophet-man be understood except as an affection of mind and will corresponding to the active inspiration, as effect to its cause; nor finally can the very inspired being of Scripture be understood except as the terminus which the inspiring Spirit through the man inspired in mind and will regards and effects. Moreover d) this analysis of the twofold operation is sometimes expressly instituted by the Fathers themselves, as when the sacred writers are said both to have known from Christ the head the things to be written (by illustration of mind), and Christ is said to have commanded them as His hands, what they wrote, (by motion of will).

2°. Why inspiration is called a charism is sufficiently evident of itself, since it is a gratuitous and supernatural spiritual gift. It is equally certain that it pertains to the charisms which by a generic name but with specific signification are called freely given. For it is referred to the gift of prophecy taken generically (cf. Suarez, On Faith, disp. VIII, sect. 4, n. 6), and was granted not for the personal sanctification of the recipient, but for the sanctification and supernatural fruit of others and of the whole Church (cf. St Th., 1. 2, q. 111, a. 1.).

Corollary 1. The doctrine of the Fathers by which they exclude human art in writing from the inspired writers, and some of them affirm that the operation of the Holy Spirit extends to every apex of the Scriptures, only demonstrates that the ideas and sentences were inspired by God in order to writing, and that for expressing them no signs by which something other than what God willed would be signified, but everywhere suitable signs were employed under the assistance of the Holy Spirit; it does not however signify that the single words were inspired in the same way as the senses. On the other hand, the labor and industry and study of the sacred writers in investigating the things to be written from documents and witnesses, indeed even their apologies for the tenuity of style and speech, show indeed that the inspired men were not dead but living and rational instruments, who themselves also did something; they do not however show that divine inspiration was lacking to them. This matter can conveniently be illustrated from the manner in which God generally is wont to act in the order of grace. For preparing and conferring grace on men God can and is wont to use also external and sensible instruments (of which kind are all the sensible means of salvation in the Church, and among these the sacraments themselves). Moreover through grace He elevates the soul and furnishes it with supernatural powers even for those acts of the virtues which in substance can be put forth by merely natural powers; but through the powers of grace it comes about that the acts are now supernatural and of a wholly other order than if they were put forth by man left to his natural powers. So therefore it can be understood that God, for the inspiration of the ideas and sentences which He willed to be consigned in Scripture and thus to be proposed to the Church as His word, sometimes used also external instruments, supplying to the men to be inspired documents, witnesses, their own inspection of the things to be written and natural knowledge, with which aids He would join His internal illustration of intellect and motion of will, and would effect that they conceive in mind and embrace in will for writing all and only those things which He Himself in His counsel comprehended to be communicated to the Church through Scripture. Hence there exists no difficulty against inspiration from the fact that e.g. the writer of the book of 2 Machabees II. 24. 27 says that he « attempted to comprise in one volume the things comprehended by Jason of Cyrene in five books, » and that in this work he « assumed a task full of watchings and sweat; » that likewise St Luke I. 2. 3 protests that, having diligently attained all things — from witnesses namely of the deeds done — it seemed good to him to write them in order; that the Apostles, and by name John XIX. 36; 1 John I. 1, appeal, as to a historical motive of credibility, to their own inspection of things. These things concerning the very things and sentences.

Now as regards words and style in writing, since in these for the most part the writers, left to their own genius and erudition, were fortified through the assistance of the Holy Spirit only against errors harmful to the very truth and sincerity of the things and sentences, the writer of 2 Mach. XV. 39 could apologize for tenuity and mediocrity, and Paul could confess in 2 Cor. XI. 6 that he was « rude in speech but not in knowledge » (ἴδιωτῆς τῷ λόγῳ ἀλλ' οὗ τῆς γνώσεως.) In this same sense St Thomas declares what is said in the gloss (the ordinary of Walafrid Strabo) on the epistle to the Hebrews: « it is not to be wondered at (so Walafrid) that the epistle to the Hebrews shines with greater eloquence than the others; since it is natural to each one to avail more in his own than in a foreign tongue » (for he thought with others that this epistle was written by Paul in Hebrew, the rest in Greek). Whence the Angelic Doctor raises to himself the difficulty against the supernatural gift of tongues granted to the Apostles, and thus solves it: « it must be said that, as is said in 1 Cor. XII. 7, the manifestation of the Spirit is given unto profit, and therefore Paul and the other Apostles were divinely instructed in the tongues of all nations as much as was required for the doctrine of faith; but as regards certain things which are superadded by human art for the ornament and elegance of speech, the Apostle was instructed (by acquired knowledge) in his own tongue, but not in a foreign one » — St Th., 2. 2, q. 176, a. 1, ad 1. The speech is, as is clear, of utterance and style in the inspired epistles.

Corollary 2. As the charism of prophecy taken generally, so also the charism of inspiration for writing does not comprehend as an essential element either ecstasy of mind or suspension of liberty⁸. For although inspired men receive the charism of illustration and motion without their free cooperation, yet the motion is not necessarily of such a kind as to drive the will with antecedent necessity; but it suffices that it move it infallibly to obey. See Bonfrère, Praeloquia, ch. 8, sect. 2. 4; cf. St Th., 2. 2, q. 173, a. 3, ad 4.

Corollary 3. As in the prophetic instinct for speaking, which St Thomas, 2. 2, q. 173, a. 4, and the other theologians distinguish from complete prophecy (cf. Aug., Literal Meaning of Genesis, bk. III, n. 37), so also in inspiration for writing it does not indeed seem essential that man know himself to be inspired by God; yet it is not easily to be conceded that in fact any of the sacred writers were unaware of their inspiration. Cf. John XI. 49–52. See Suarez, On Faith, disp. V, sect. 3, n. 15; disp. VIII, sect. 4, nn. 2. 6; Bonfrère, Praeloq., ch. 8, sect. 6. It is self-evident that our faith concerning the fact of inspiration can stand no less through the revelation of it promulgated by Christ or the Apostles, even if the fact had not been known to the inspired man himself⁹.

Corollary 4. Although besides the Scriptures there exist other ecclesiastical documents which both contain the word of God and were put forth under the assistance of the Holy Spirit infallibly precluding error, yet not therefore besides the Scriptures are there other inspired monuments.

Corollary 5. Since the proposition of the word through books made by God, at least according to the ordinary destination of books, does not seem conceivable after the manner of a private revelation, but is of itself public and directed to the people of God — or at any rate all books which can be reckoned to Sacred Scripture according to the proper signification of this name have this scope (see thesis I) — it stands that the extraordinary charism of inspiration for writing the books of Sacred Scripture ceased with the very consummation of Catholic revelation. See Treatise on Tradition, thesis XXII. But although even in the present economy of consummated Catholic revelation inspiration for some private writing is not absolutely repugnant, yet such writing, if it existed, would in no way pertain to Scripture consigned to the Church and proposed by the Church to the faithful; but concerning it there would have to be judged in the same way as we said generally of private revelations in the Corollary to the cited thesis XXII.

The notion of inspiration consisting in mere divine assistance is refuted, as is that which is called subsequent inspiration.

« It is false, what John Jahn and others have taught, that for the rationale of an inspired book it suffices, and that in actual fact the inspiration of Sacred Scripture consists in this alone, that God by His assistance averted the danger of erring and rendered men infallible in writing; and this is false, whether the truths thus written are said to have been already revealed before or not to have been revealed. With still less right have some called subsequent inspiration the divine testimony to the full veracity of a book written by merely human aid, and have thought it no wrong to deem some books of Sacred Scripture, especially in the narrations of deeds known to the writers by human means, to be inspired only subsequently in this way. »

I. The former of the two notions of inspiration which we refute was laid down absolutely, and with no distinction made among the books of Scripture whether prophetic or historical, by John Jahn. For thus does he define it. « We call divine assistance for the prevention of errors suggestion or inspiration, which appellation is consecrated by usage of speech, although it be not very fitting; for it expresses something positive, whereas the notion underlying it is negative. In this very point indeed does this divine safeguarding from errors differ from revelation, that it supplies the writer with no new knowledge, teaches him nothing; but only hinders the admixture of errors in what he already knows; whereas revelation furnishes doctrines, knowledge, and understanding of the divine counsels. This definition of inspiration and distinction from revelation is to be carefully noted; for frequently the one is confounded with the other, from which confusion great difficulties afterwards arise. » So he, in the Introduction to the divine books of the Old Testament, 2nd ed., vol. I, § 19.

Bonfrerius to a cursory reader might seem to be of the same opinion; in reality, however, his view differs much from that of Jahn, although even in the Bonfrerian explanation the genuine and integral notion of inspiration cannot be judged to be expressed, nor could it, especially after the Vatican definition, any longer be maintained. Bonfrerius distinguishes a threefold manner in which the Holy Spirit bears Himself toward the sacred writers, antecedently, concomitantly, and consequently. Of the so-called consequent inspiration we shall treat later; meanwhile Bonfrerius calls antecedent « when the Holy Spirit inspires, reveals, shows forth what is to be said or written, so that the writer adds nothing of his own wit, but writes only what has been inspired and revealed by the Holy Spirit. » This manner he refers to those parts of the books where the inspired matters are of themselves above the power of human understanding, neither known nor knowable to man naturally. Concomitantly he holds the Holy Spirit to have borne Himself with the holy writers in the historical books, in the part where deeds known to the writers from elsewhere are narrated: « thus (he says) the Gospels, thus the Acts of the Apostles, thus the books of Machabees, thus the other historical books written by prophets or others. » Now this second concomitant manner of Bronfrerius might seem to be altogether the same as that inspiration asserted by Jahn, yet it is not. Thus does he speak: « concomitantly does the Holy Spirit bear Himself when He bears Himself not after the manner of one dictating and inspiring (understand: supplying matters unknown), but after the manner of one who with his eye would direct another writing, lest he err in anything. For in this way can the Holy Spirit direct the hagiographer, so as to permit him to err or be deceived in nothing; since He foreknows what he is about to write, He so stands by him, that if He should see him about to err anywhere, He would come to his aid with His inspiration (with the suggestion of the unknown matter). » Further, in men writing under this concomitant action of the Holy Spirit « there is a certain determination from without, so that they cannot write things different from or contrary to what they write, since, as they write, the Holy Spirit does not suffer them to err, but ever stands by the writers ready in first act to inspire what is to be written, if left to themselves they would go astray; yet from within they are free, since in actual fact the Holy Spirit does not determine them, nor works anything in them antecedently, except where the divine operation is necessary for them » Praeloq. c. 8. sect. 1–4. See also Richard Simon, Hist. crit. N. T., pt. I, c. 23, 24; Calmet, dissert. de Inspirat., art. 2 (on 2 Pet. I. 21).

The difference, then, of this opinion from the other of Jahn is chiefly twofold, in that a) Bonfrerius does not extend mere assistance for the prevention of errors to all the books and texts of Scripture; in that b) everywhere in all books and passages he admits, joined with that assistance, a positive inspiration in first act, which, as often as is necessary, passes into second act and suggests to the writer the very matters and sentences to be written; from which three notions—assistance for avoiding errors, suggestion of what is to be written ready in first act, suggestion of what is to be written in second act where necessity requires—consists and is completed the integral notion of that concomitant manner; not therefore is this, as with Jahn, a merely negative notion.¹ Which things although they be so, we judge nevertheless that this opinion too of Bonfrerius, and his explanation of concomitant inspiration, is without doubt false. For although inspiration properly so called in first act is said to be everywhere ready at hand to the writer, yet in actual fact many things would stand written in the sacred books which in second act would not be properly inspired, but written by human powers alone, albeit under the infallible assistance of God. Whence it agrees in part with the opinion of Jahn, and so will be refuted together with it. Now the opinion of Jahn is refuted by altogether all the arguments by which we have proved theses II and III.

1°. Jahn himself confesses that by the name inspiration a positive act is signified; whence he says this name is less fit for expressing the negative notion laid down by him. But the name is biblical, employed by the Apostles; its positive notion is manifestly deduced from the doctrine of Christ, the prophets, and the Apostles, as it is exhibited both in the Scriptures of the Old Testament and in the evangelical and apostolic writings; it has been declared in the universal preaching of the Church; expressed in the creeds and in the definitions of Councils (th. II, III). Therefore from the very revealed doctrine which we have demonstrated above, the Scriptures are inspired in the proper and positive sense, and not in an improper and merely negative signification.

2°. From what has been demonstrated, inspiration is such an action of God upon men, and the books of Scripture are so the work of inspired men, that God must be believed to be the author of the books. But if divine assistance only hindered errors, while for the rest men wrote the books by their own wit, God is not the author of the books.

3°. If that were the notion of inspiration, and if the Scriptures were inspired only in that sense, the ecumenical Councils and the Supreme Pontiff could write books, or at least documents of definitions, by inspiration, and the charism of inspiration would consequently be ordinary. In actual fact, too, there would exist inspired documents besides the Scriptures. But all these things are utterly false.

It is evident of itself that this notion of inspiration remains false, whether it be a question of passages of Scripture containing doctrine already revealed apart from the act of inspiration to the writers themselves or to others, or the discourse be of books and passages whose doctrine and sentences were not elsewhere revealed. For if revealed doctrine be consigned to writing by a man of his own wit, with the assistance of God only forestalling error, God will not on that account be the author of the book, albeit infallibly containing revealed doctrine, as is plain in the canons and definitions of Councils, in which revealed doctrine is infallibly contained, yet God is not the author of the writing itself in that proper sense in which God must be believed to be the author of inspired Scripture (th. II, III).

4°. With that concept of inspiration of Jahn supposed, many things would be contained explicitly in the Scriptures which yet would not be the word of God, nor explicitly revealed by God. For if St. Luke, for example (and the same holds of the other historical narrations and moral doctrines of the Bible), in the Acts narrated the deeds of Paul and others only insofar as he knew them by humanly acquired knowledge, and God only hindered error, those facts in themselves are not manifested by God but by man alone, although from the divine assistance it be infallibly certain that the facts happened as they are narrated by the man. Since therefore this assistance is supposed to be revealed, the truth of the facts narrated may be deemed implicitly revealed in the revelation of the divine assistance; yet the facts will not be revealed explicitly and in themselves. He, then, who should deny those facts would sin against faith, because he would deny the word of God revealing the assistance, and in the assistance the infallible veracity of the narration, but he would not deny the word of God explicitly revealing the facts themselves in themselves, because no such word would exist. Whence the divine revelation would bear itself toward such facts and the moral doctrines of Sacred Scripture in nearly the same way as e.g. revelation bears itself toward dogmatic facts defined by the Church with infallible veracity. But all these things are utterly false and absurd. Therefore false is that concept of inspiration from which these things follow.

II. In the second part of the thesis we treat of a certain singular opinion which, once proposed by a very few theologians in Belgium as a possible hypothesis, has in our age begun to be revived as a thesis concerning the notion of inspiration actually obtaining in certain books of Scripture. Bonfrerius, l.c., sect. 7, describes a third manner in which the Holy Spirit could bear Himself in the writing of books. « Consequently the Holy Spirit could bear Himself, he says, if something had been written by some writer with the human spirit, without the aid, direction, assistance of the Holy Spirit, yet afterwards the Holy Spirit should testify that all things written therein are true; for it is certain that then this whole writing would be the word of God, and would have the same infallible truth as have the rest which were written by the inspiration or direction of the same Holy Spirit. »

That a book thus approved by the Holy Spirit would be Sacred Scripture he undertakes to persuade by a twofold argument. For a) a decree written by another of his own wit, which the king approves, becomes the word of the king. b) A sentence uttered by a man the Holy Spirit « can render Sacred Scripture and the word of God by proving it and asserting it to be true; and so He has in fact done » in approving a certain sentence of the profane poets Aratus, Acts XVII. 28, and Epimenides, Tit. I. 12, and Menander, 1 Cor. XV. 33 (see St. Jerome, ep. 70, n. 2, to Magnus).

Therefore « in like manner an entire history or any book, although at first written with a profane spirit, the Holy Spirit could render Sacred Scripture by asserting that all things contained in that book are true. »

Bonfrerius declares expressly, however, that he does not wish this hypothesis of his applied to any whatsoever book of Sacred Scripture which we now have. « In this third way, he says, although I do not think the Holy Spirit has ever acted in those books of Sacred Scripture which we have, yet absolutely nothing forbids His acting so, or even His having perhaps acted so sometime in some of those books which we have said were Sacred Scripture and yet afterwards perished, » since namely, in the Scripture which we have, they seem by the very citation of and appeal to them to have been approved as veracious.

Thus too, as a hypothetical doctrine and one of possibility, the thesis was proposed before Bonfrerius by Lessius and Hamelius.² « if some pious and salutary work composed by human industry from a divine instinct,³ approved by the public testimony of the Holy Spirit as most true in all its parts, such a work would have an authority equally infallible as (has) Sacred Scripture, and would rightly be called Sacred Scripture and the word of God. For of the same authority is a letter dictated by the king and (another) subscribed by him; which manner, although in fact I think it is not found in any book of the canonical Scripture, yet is not impossible » (Hist. Congreg. de Auxil. of Livinus de Meyer, bk. I, c. 9, Venetian ed. 1742, p. 24).

But in these our times the opinion concerning subsequent approbation, by which some book becomes Sacred Scripture, has been proposed in a far worse form by certain learned men, who have deemed that there stand in fact in our canon of the Scriptures several books or texts of books which, written by merely human aid, were nevertheless afterwards added to the sacred Scriptures by the authority and approbation of the Church. Nay, appealing to Bonfrerius, they call this approbation subsequent inspiration, and say that a book thus approved becomes inspired, which manner of speaking, most inconvenient and indeed inept, neither Bonfrerius nor any other before these times employed. They propose, then, and make their own in the first place the distinction of antecedent and concomitant inspiration; then they proceed thus. « It may also be that a writing originally composed by merely ordinary human powers was at length elevated to the dignity of the word of God, and by this very fact became inspired, in that it was inserted into the canon.⁴ In this hypothesis a writing would have become the word of God in the way in which a passage written by Cicero becomes my word when I employ it in some oration or letter to express my concept: this is subsequent inspiration. Which of these three species of inspiration is to be referred to this or that book, to this or that verse, can scarcely be defined in detail; we can only say that those places in which it is expressed: thus saith the Lord, or something similar, belong more probably to the first (antecedent) species, while the historical narrations of things subject to experience may belong to the later (subsequent) one. The poetical books seem to be reckoned chiefly to the second (concomitant) » (Historia revelationis biblicae by D. Daniel Haneberg, 1850, p. 774).

All these things, especially after the definition published in the ecumenical Vatican Council, can in no way be maintained. The definition runs thus. « Those (entire books with all their parts, as they are enumerated in the decree of the Tridentine Council and are contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition) the Church holds for sacred and canonical, not therefore because, composed by merely human industry, they were afterwards approved by her authority; nor therefore only because they contain revelation without error; but therefore because, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God for author, and as such have been handed down to the Church herself » (Constitut. Dei Filius, c. 2). As is plain, a) a twofold error is by this declaration of the Council directly excluded: that some books of Scripture were written by merely human industry, yet afterwards approved by the Church and inserted into the canons of the Scriptures, and on this account held sacred and canonical; or that some books of Scripture are divine books only by reason of their matter and not by reason of the writing itself. b) It is positively taught that the books of Scripture are sacred by reason of the very writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so as to have God for author. Yet the individual marks by which divine inspiration may be discerned, and what is required for God to be the author of the books, are not explained by the Council itself. Hence c) by theologically demonstrating the notion of inspiration and its distinction from divine assistance, and by declaring what is required, or at least what does not suffice, for God to be the author of the books, there is inferred from this definition of the Council, by theological conclusion, the falsity of that opinion too which asserts that mere divine assistance, by which God stood by the writers safeguarding them from all error, suffices for the rationale of Sacred Scripture such as the Church now has, and that in fact in some sacred books or parts of books no inspiration distinct from this assistance took place. d) Of the merely hypothetical opinion, as Bonfrerius explained it, the Council does not speak. In truth, if it is only said that a humanly written book, whose veracity in each and every point God had afterwards revealed by public revelation, could be called Sacred Scripture and would have divine authority, the dispute may be about words, provided there be acknowledged the diversity of such a book from the divinely inspired Scripture which the Church has received and has.

As regards the inward fallacy of that wrongly so called subsequent inspiration, that we may disentangle the confusion of matters, we distinguish these three: a book is inspired, a book is Sacred Scripture, a book contains the word of God; finally we shall inquire how it is not absolutely repugnant that some humanly written book become a divinely written or inspired writing.

1°. Inspiration is a divine supernatural action upon the man writing, from which the book written by the inspired man is and is called terminatively inspired. But a divine approbation and declaration that in some book written by merely human aid there is nothing not true is not an action of God upon the writer; nor does it come about through this declaration that the past act of writing ceases to be merely human, and that a book long since composed by merely human aid begins to be written divinely. Therefore such approbation is not and cannot be inspiration, nor can such a book be inspired.

2°. The name Scripture and Sacred Scripture is, from biblical and Christian usage, a proper name designating nothing else, no other sacred monument, but the books and parts of books which were written under divine inspiration. Therefore, since a subsequent divine approbation and declaration of veracity cannot render a book inspired and homogeneous in origin with the books of Scripture, neither can it effect that it pertain to Sacred Scripture properly so called. If sacred scripture be taken in a more common and generic signification, the divine revelation of the veracity and holiness of doctrine does indeed effect that such a writing already be sacred, just as the definitions of Councils or of the Roman Pontiffs, on account of the infallible veracity concerning which it is established from divine revelation, can be called sacred writings.

3°. From such an attestation of the veracity of a book, made by God Himself through catholic revelation, it would indeed follow that the things contained in a book of human origin would be divinely revealed truths, and consequently the word of God to be believed. For as truths naturally known by men in general, so too truths naturally known and written by some man, God could propose to be believed by supernatural revelation, and He would effect this by the very fact that through public revelation He attested the veracity of the book. But not on that account would that humanly written book be an inspired book or Sacred Scripture of the proper name, although it could be called a divine book by reason of the matter and the truths which it contains (cf. th. II). Of such a subsequent catholic revelation of God have spoken those certain Belgian theologians of whom we have spoken. But since they saw that the books which we have in the canon have been handed down, simply and all in one manner, as books of God the author, while of any other diverse subsequent revelation as regards any of them there is no vestige, they therefore wisely protested that they wished that hypothetical theory of theirs applied to no canonical book at all. But what Sixtus of Siena and certain more recent men have said concerning reception into the canon by the authority of the Church, by which a book written by merely human industry could become Sacred Scripture, nay that in fact some books or parts of books by this insertion into the canon became Scripture inspired with subsequent inspiration, is far different. For such a reception of a human book into the canon a) by the infallible Church cannot take place, because it would be a false testimony concerning the inspiration of a book which is not inspired. b) An infallible definition of the Church concerning the truth of all things contained in some human book is indeed not repugnant; but through it not only would the book not become inspired Scripture, but neither would it be effected that the truths contained in that book would be divinely revealed truths. For such a definition would bear itself in the same way as a definition in dogmatic facts; that is, it would be established concerning the truth of all things written in the book, not through the immediate revelation of God but through the revealed infallibility of the testifying Church or Pontiff; therefore they would have to be believed with faith not immediately but mediately divine (cf. above, p. 124).

For the rest, those certain theologians who have spoken of a subsequent revelation of God through which a human book could become Sacred Scripture seem to have been deceived by a confusion of the divinity of a book by reason of the matter which it contains and by reason of the writing. That is, they confound the comprehension of the word of God and the divine origin or inspiration of the writing itself. Because they see that by a subsequent divine revelation it can be effected that what is contained in a veracious humanly written book already be the word of God, they conclude that the book itself is inspired and is Sacred Scripture, which yet in no way follows.

Hence too you will answer the proof which they bring from the similitude of a royal diploma. If a royal minister wrote a document of his own wit, with the king neither supplying the sentiments nor moving the will of the minister, by no approbation would the king become the author of the written work. By the approbation of the king, however, the laws written in that document would become royal laws, because law obtains its formal rationale and force of law not from the jurisconsults who conceived and wrote it in mind, but from the manifestation of the royal will and from the approbation made by the king. In this sense too the codes of laws are attributed to princes, e.g. Justinian, Theodosius, etc., not because they are said to be the authors of the books, but because the contents in the codes have the force of law from the authority and will of the princes.

For the signification is not the same when author of a book is said, and when Theodosian code or diploma of the king or testament of the testator is named; by the former locution is signified from whose mind the very complex of sentences emanated and was written; by the latter appellations there is said of itself only from whom the code, diploma, testament has authority and binding force.

4°. Since the adversaries appeal to certain sentences of the pagans which they say were made Sacred Scripture by subsequent approbation of veracity, and to the similitude that one man can render another's, e.g. Cicero's, sentences his own, for the declaration of this matter it must be inquired how a document long ago written by human means can become inspired. From what has been said it is already established that an inspired book, and Sacred Scripture of the proper name, cannot be except from a supernatural action of God upon man for writing, from which the book exists inspired in its origin. Therefore a) no subsequent approbation can render a book inspired. b) Nor does the adoption of a profane sentence made by an inspired author render it in itself inspired, although the report and application or narration of that sentence spoken by a profane man be inspired. Thus e.g. the report of the discourses of the friends of Job, nay even of the sentences of impious men « who said, thinking within themselves not rightly... let us crown ourselves with roses » etc., Wis. II, the narration of the saying by the man born blind: « God does not hear sinners » Jn. IX. 31, the application of the verses of Aratus and Epimenides, Acts XVII. 28; Tit. I. 12, is without doubt inspired; but not on that account have those sentences in themselves, or as they stand in the books of the poets, become inspired truth. Nevertheless c) it would not be repugnant that some true sentence, though humanly written, become inspired. For as preceding natural knowledge of a truth is no reason why God cannot inspire it for writing, so too preceding natural writing is no reason which of itself would impede the inspiration of the same truth for writing it divinely; and then, indeed, neither would it be repugnant that, for expressing the same inspired sentence, the same words be employed which the profane author used. Thus it is not repugnant that the inspired author of 2 Mach. should have conceived the compendium of the history of Jason of Cyrene, inspired to him for writing, in the very words of Jason himself, whom we suppose to have been a non-inspired author. Hence too we concede that it is not absolutely repugnant that there be inspired matters and sentences, all of which already stood written humanly in some book true throughout. If then all those matters and inspired sentences were expressed in the same words which the non-inspired author had used, in this hypothesis the same concept or the same entire book would have been written twice in a very different manner, once humanly and again divinely. This, however, although from the very notion of inspiration not in itself repugnant, yet if it be a question of an entire book, seems almost trifling, nor sufficiently reconcilable with the divine majesty and wisdom.

ON THE WAY IN WHICH THE INSPIRED BOOKS BECOME KNOWN TO US.

On the inefficacy of internal arguments for demonstrating the inspiration of the books.

« With no right have certain Protestants, as regards the books of the New Testament, placed both the positive and the exclusive criterion for discerning the inspired Scriptures in the office of apostolate with which the writers were adorned. Equally fallacious is the argument by which other Protestants affirm that all those books and only those, which at their defection from the Church they retained as the sole rule of faith, become known as divinely inspired from the internal characters of the books, both from their doctrine and form, and from their salutary efficacy upon the souls of readers. »

I. John David Michaelis (Introduction to the N. Testament, Vol. I, ch. 3) lays down this doctrine. a) By the principles of his Confession no Protestant is allowed to appeal to the testimony of the Church, whether present or past or even of the apostolic age, to prove the inspiration of the sacred books which they take up as the sole rule of faith. But the argument of Protestants drawn from the « sapore » and from the usefulness of these books is empty and inefficacious for proving inspiration¹. b) Concerning the inspiration of the books of the O. T. we can be certain from the testimony of Christ and the Apostles; but no such express testimony exists for the inspiration of the books of the N. T. c) The sole valid criterion for the inspiration of these books is, if they were written by Apostles. Hence the inspiration of those books of the N. T. which were written by others than Apostles, as the Gospels of Mark and Luke, cannot be demonstrated. d) That the Apostles were inspired by virtue of the apostolic office is proved by Michaelis with arguments reducible to three. α) The office and charism of the Apostles is more excellent than that of the prophets; but the prophets were inspired; therefore the Apostles too were inspired. β) Christ promised and sent the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, to teach them all truth. γ) Our faith rests upon the doctrine of the Apostles; therefore their writings, in which the doctrine of faith has come down to us, must be inspired. They had from Christ a legislative power; therefore their writings which contain moral doctrine are inspired². Finally, by way of appendix, he subjoins an argument from 2 Pet. III. 16, a passage which no longer concerns the office and charism proper to the apostolate, on which our knowledge of inspiration rests; insofar as the inspiration of the books of the N. T. is proved from that testimony, we shall see elsewhere.

Did we not know to what straits the Protestants, with Tradition rejected, have been reduced by their very fundamental principle of Scripture as the sole rule of faith, it might seem that Michaelis by these arguments wished not to demonstrate the inspiration of the books of the N. T. but to show that it can in no way be demonstrated by Protestants; so inept are they and so utterly beside the point. We shall examine the criterion thus laid down first in its affirming sense, then in its excluding sense.

1°. As regards the affirmation, that the office of apostolate is the positive criterion of inspiration for writing, the following points are to be noted. Inspiration for writing, no less than the gift of prophecy and inspiration for speaking, is a freely given charism, not permanent by way of habit, but transient by way of act (cf. S. Th. 2.2. q. 171. a. 2.). But inspiration for writing is a charism distinct both from the revelation made to a man immediately by God, and from infallibility for announcing revelation whether by voice or by writing, and also from inspiration for speaking, as is evident from the very notion of inspiration for writing demonstrated above. For with all these posited, inspiration for writing is not yet had; whence we see that many prophets and Apostles, to whom those charisms were not lacking, were nevertheless not inspired to write books. Conversely, there can be inspiration for writing apart from revelation in the strictest sense (above, th. III. n. I.), indeed even apart from the mission of the inspired man to announce revelation properly so called by voice and preaching, and apart from inspiration for speaking. For how will it be proved that the writer e.g. of the book of Esther, which even the Protestants retain in the canon, was necessarily furnished either with all those gifts or with any of them? The charism of inspiration for writing is therefore so distinct and separable from those gifts that it is neither included in them nor follows from them.

Now it can be demonstrated — and the arguments of Michaelis, if they prove anything, demonstrate this one thing — that the charisms of immediate revelation and of infallibility in preaching were proper and connected to the apostolate according to Christ's institution; but there is no argument by which it might be demonstrated that, from Christ's promise and institution, the charism of inspiration for writing books was essential to that same office or necessarily connected with it. For a) just as all the mandates given by Christ in His earthly life to the Apostles refer to preaching, and none belongs to writing; so too to the same refer the promises joined with the mandates, and from these promises come the essential charisms of the apostolate (see Tract. de Tradit. th. IV. V. VII.). Hence b) the Apostles, who indeed all discharged the office enjoined and were furnished with the charisms connected with it, nevertheless did not all write inspired books. Therefore c) from the charism of the apostolate it indeed follows that the Apostles, if they wished to set forth the revealed doctrine in writing, were infallible in writing the doctrine of Christ just as in preaching it; but from the apostolic office taken by itself it does not follow that the writing itself is inspired; nor does it follow that the Apostles could not have written other things having nothing to do with the doctrine of Christ, in which they would have been not only not inspired but not even infallible. From the genuineness, therefore, of an apostolic book there indeed follows the divinity of the revealed doctrine set forth in it, and infallibility in setting forth or writing the doctrine; but it does not follow per se that the book, by the very fact that it is genuine and has an Apostle as its writer, is inspired (cf. Tract. de Tradit. th. XXI. n. II.). The argument taken by Michaelis from the inspiration of the prophets is nothing but a begging of the question, if the genuine notion of inspiration for writing is held. For if the prophets are said to have been inspired for writing by virtue of the prophetic office itself, this is the very point at issue, since we deny that such inspiration is essentially connected with the office, whether prophetic or apostolic, taken by itself. But if prophetic writing in the biblical sense of the name is called inspired writing, this is certainly true (above, th. II. n. II.); but this charism is bound to no office or state. For what we have said of the Apostles of the New Testament holds also of the prophets of the Old Testament; there were, namely, many prophets who were not inspired for writing, and conversely there were or could be inspired writers who were not adorned with the office of prophets. Hence e) the charism of inspiration is extraordinary not only in comparison with successors, in that it was not to be propagated by any ordinary succession; but also in comparison with the apostolate itself, inasmuch as it was not necessarily connected with the apostolic office. Therefore the inspiration even of an apostolic book cannot become certainly known unless it is established by a special trustworthy testimony; and if the book is proposed to be believed with divine faith as belonging to inspired Scripture, the fact of inspiration can be sufficiently established only by divine testimony or revelation. For nothing is believed with divine faith except on account of the authority of God revealing.

But someone might perhaps call this doctrine into doubt because the inquiry into the canonical authority or inspiration of certain books of the N. T., e.g. the Epistle to the Hebrews, certain of the seven so-called Catholic Epistles, and the Apocalypse, seems among ancient writers to coincide with the inquiry into the apostolic origin and genuineness of those same books, so that positively the books were held to be inspired by the very fact that they were established to have Apostles as authors; and conversely negatively, if a book were not of apostolic origin, its canonical authority too would be doubted. Indeed it seems absurd to confess that some book was written by an Apostle, and yet to deny that it is inspired.

But in the first place it is false that, in the negative sense, these two questions were treated by the ancients as so connected that from the denial of apostolic origin the denial of inspiration would necessarily follow. For there were no lack of those who doubted concerning the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, as also of the Apocalypse, whether he was John the Apostle or another John the presbyter, without on that account calling inspiration into doubt. And who ever but a heretic doubted concerning the inspiration of the Gospels of Mark and Luke and of the book of the Acts of the Apostles? Then in the positive sense, inspiration was not inferred simply from apostolic origin; but that origin and genuineness were employed as a confirmation of the existing Tradition concerning the inspiration of the book, and for removing doubts concerning this existing Tradition. For the question concerned books which, as we shall afterwards demonstrate, by universal use, custom and reading were held as belonging to Holy Scripture handed down by the Apostles. If therefore any called into doubt this very apostolic Tradition concerning some book as Holy Scripture, nothing was more obvious to them than to try to weaken the force of the existing custom and use of the Churches by doubts raised concerning the very genuineness of the book, or, once a doubt had arisen concerning the force of the existing Tradition, to doubt also concerning the genuineness of the book. Indeed sometimes they did not simply adjudge the books away from the Apostle writers, but attributed them to heretical forgers, as the Apocalypse to Cerinthus; from which it would indeed have followed that it was not inspired. The state of the controversy, therefore, was such that the force of the existing Tradition, by which these books had been transmitted as Holy Scripture, was impugned by the suspicion that the books were supposititious. In these circumstances the Fathers could rightly argue, whether expressly or implicitly: these books which the Churches have received and retain as Holy Scripture were written by the Apostles themselves, and have not crept under their name into the Scriptures of the Churches; therefore that Tradition of the Churches is legitimate and retains its force. This line of argument does not conclude simply and in general, as by an intrinsically necessary consequence, from apostolic origin to the inspiration of the books; but from the apostolic origin of the books it confirms the force of the Tradition by which they were handed down as inspired books. Besides, there always flourished a common persuasion, by way of principle, that no books of the Apostles exist in writing, or at least none have been handed down to the Church, except inspired ones. But this was testimony not as concerning the essence of the matter, from the very nature of the apostolate, but as concerning a historical fact, from Tradition confirmed by ecclesiastical consent.

2°. Far more absurd, and indeed heretical, is the criterion of Michaelis in the excluding sense, that no books of the N. T. can be proved inspired unless written by Apostles. For the extraordinary charism of inspiration for writing is bound to no office or condition of persons; but if to any other gift, most of all to this one, so long as revelation is not complete, « the Spirit breatheth where he will. » Just as, therefore, the inspiration of a book can be demonstrated from no office with which the writer may have been invested in the Church; so too the lack of an office, whether apostolic or any other, is no obstacle to the demonstration, which must be sought elsewhere, namely from divine testimony and revelation.

II. The Protestants readily understood that their fundamental principle concerning the written word as the immediate utterance of the Holy Spirit, and concerning Scripture as the sole rule of faith, could not stand unless the inspiration of the Scriptures which they retained in their canon were certain, and unless it were established from foundations other than the apostolic Tradition preserved and declared through the Catholic Church. In order, therefore, somehow to free themselves from the necessity of finding a testimony besides the Scriptures, by which the inspiration of those Scriptures might be established — since they saw that such testimony could be none other than that preserved in the Tradition conserved and declared through apostolic succession in the Catholic Church — they took refuge in arguments and criteria internal to the canonical books themselves, from which their divine origin and inspiration might become known. They distinguish a threefold criterion: a) a historical one, which they place in the miracles and prophecies comprehended in Scripture; b) another which they themselves call internal, and which might better be called dogmatic, placed in the sanctity, sublimity, and agreement of the doctrine contained in these books; c) another which they call empirical, drawn from the wondrous effects which the souls of readers experience from the force and efficacy of the word of God (see Card. Wiseman, On the Principal Doctrines of the Catholic Church, Lect. 2. Some add d) what we may call the aesthetic argument, to be joined with the dogmatic criterion, placing it in the sublimity and simplicity of diction. And yet it is evident even to the dull-witted at a glance that all these arguments cannot constitute principles from which, whether taken generally or examined singly, it may legitimately be inferred that all those books and only those are divinely inspired.

1°. Let us consider them generally. For the inspiration of the books to become certainly known from such characters, a) it must be established that these marks can have no other cause than inspiration. But this is false, or at any rate can in no way be demonstrated or known by us. For suppose a book to contain revealed doctrine, and no reason can any longer be found why a book written by human effort could not be distinguished by all those marks, as easily appears both from the very nature of the thing and from the many books of saintly authors nowise inspired. b) Either the enumerated characters, all taken together and insofar as they are present in an eminent degree, are said to demonstrate inspiration as their cause, as an effect does, or individuals among them can do so too, in whatever degree they are present in the books. But the latter is evidently absurd, and with it posited not only those books comprehended in the canon but simply innumerable ones would be inspired. If, however, the former is asserted, there would first have to be determined that eminent degree and the manner in which these marks must be present — which can be done neither a priori and from the very nature of the thing, nor a posteriori and from some positive revelation of God Himself, since of such a revelation concerning internal marks by which the inspiration of books is to be known there exists no trace. But even omitting this determination, those enumerated characters all taken together are not present in all the books which even the Protestants have in the canon; and insofar as they are present in them, they are not present in them alone. For to say nothing of most of the historical books of the Old Testament and their parts, how, pray, with inspiration not yet supposed, will they demonstrate that those marks are present in the required degree in the Epistles e.g. 2nd and 3rd John, the Epistle of Jude, those of Paul to Titus and to Philemon; while on the contrary the admirable epistles e.g. of Ignatius or Polycarp or that of Clement or the other to Diognetus etc. lack these marks of inspiration? Nor let them say that these epistles are known from elsewhere to be nowise inspired, inasmuch as they were written after the apostolic age. For besides that this is not true of all of them, the question now is not concerning the inspiration of these epistles; but on the contrary it is supposed that they are not inspired; yet since it does not appear that the marks which they call indices of inspiration are less present in these and other human writings — indeed since they seem to be far more present — than in many books and parts of books which even the Protestants have retained as inspired, it is evident that by the internal marks they adduce, these canonical books cannot be distinguished from human books. It is evident, therefore, that from these characters it cannot be known that the books retained by Protestants in the canon are all and only inspired.

Far different from this doctrine of the Protestants concerning internal criteria is what Catholic apologists against unbelievers commonly appeal to: the sanctity, sublimity and purity of the doctrine in the Scriptures, comparing it with the character, time and circumstances of the sacred writers, and other internal criteria. For the apologists treat in the first place of revelation, not of the inspiration of the books; then insofar as they perhaps treat of inspiration, none of them ever undertook to prove by such internal criteria that all and only the books which we have among the Scriptures are divinely inspired; but they adduce certain singular places of the Scriptures to persuade the existence of some inspiration; yet in this very proof, and generally in the demonstration of Christian truth, they hold internal criteria neither as the sole nor as the principal motives of credibility; indeed they use them more in the negative sense, to show that there is nothing in the doctrine repugnant to the fact of revelation, whose truth they demonstrate by other positive criteria.

In this sense internal criteria can also be adduced, and are sometimes adduced by the Fathers and Catholic theologians, to defend the truth of the inspiration of the books against attacks. With the demonstration supposed, namely, as accomplished from another source, the consideration of the internal characters both of the men who wrote and of the sacred books can furnish a motive of credibility to some extent and in some places in the positive sense, but chiefly in the negative sense, namely that in the books there is nothing repugnant to the fact of inspiration; and thus this consideration of the inward character of the books can remove prejudices and difficulties which might impede understanding of the demonstration drawn from testimonies. Thus e.g. Augustine, who everywhere demonstrates the divinity and inspiration of the books from Tradition, nevertheless appeals to the agreement of doctrine in opposition to the dissensions and contradictions of the philosophers, to persuade a reasonable faith of the peoples. « Our authors, in whom the canon of the sacred letters is not without reason fixed and bounded — far be it that they should in any way disagree among themselves. Hence not without reason, when they wrote those things, did peoples so many and so great, with learned and unlearned alike, believe that God spoke to them or through them.... » City of God XVIII. ch. 41. n. 1.

Thus also the Church, in examining the Tradition concerning some inspired book, whether it be genuine and apostolic, could subsidiarily invoke the consideration of internal characters, the agreement of doctrine, and the likeness of the book to others about whose inspiration from constant and certain Tradition there was no doubt. Much more directly still could she take account of the sense of the Christian people concerning such a book; for that sense is one of the criteria for discerning Tradition, as we have demonstrated in the Tract. de Tradit. th. XII, and is of a far different nature than the gustus of Luther, who admitted or rejected inspired books according as, by his private interpretation, there seemed to taste to him agreement or disagreement with his preconceived system of doctrine repugnant to universal consent. In this sense, then, is to be understood the doctrine of Bellarmine, when he says (On the Word of God, bk. I, ch. 10, reply to 2): « The Church can declare which book is to be held canonical, and this not rashly nor arbitrarily, but from the testimonies of the ancients, and from the likeness of the books about which there is doubt to those about which there is none, and finally from the common sense and as it were taste of the Christian people. » 2°. If the four aforementioned criteria are considered singly, as to the first, which they call historical, the narration of miracles and prophecies described in a book is absurdly confused with the working of miracles and the issuing of true prophecies for confirming the truth of some doctrine. Miracles and prophecies are not already worked, nor are they understood to have been worked for confirming the doctrine of inspiration, by the fact that they are related in the Scriptures; and if they had been worked for this end, the divine testimony itself concerning inspiration would be presupposed, which would then be confirmed by those supernatural signs. But then the whole question would remain, how that testimony was preserved and has come down to us. For the rest, the argument as employed by the Protestants (in His Eminence Wiseman, l.c.), when from the narration and relation of miracles and prophecies they infer that the book in which they are written is inspired, is evidently absurd. The second argument (dogmatic) and the third (empirical), even if everything the authors of the argument postulate be conceded, could at most prove that these books in some parts contain revealed doctrine. But not even that do those two arguments prove, taken by themselves, unless others be joined to them by which the writers of the books are demonstrated to have been truthful and infallible. Certainly in no way do they demonstrate the inspiration of the writing itself, nor even the truth of the narrations and doctrine in all parts of the books comprehended in the canon. From the last argument finally (which may be called aesthetic) you will never effect anything else than that things and doctrines, whether revealed or known from elsewhere, have been expressed in apt words and utterances; but that this could not have been done except by inspiration is neither evident nor can it be demonstrated, without presupposing the very thing that is in question.

On the necessity of the testimony by which inspiration becomes known.

« From the very nature of the thing, the fact of inspiration cannot become known to others besides the inspired man except by testimony; but this testimony, as regards the Scriptures which are received and believed in the Church as the inspired word of God, can be none but a divine testimony. »

I. Inspiration is a supernatural psychological fact in the mind of man which, like other internal facts, is immediately known to God, and to the inspired man himself alone; although not even to him is it necessarily known under the formal character of inspiration and insofar as it is supernatural (see th. III. Coroll. 3.). « For what man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of a man that is in him? » 1 Cor. II. 11. Inspiration, therefore, cannot become known to other men except either from its external effects or from trustworthy testimony. The external effect of the inspiration of which we speak is none other than the writing itself and the book written. But in these there is no inherent mark which of itself manifests inspiration as its necessary cause, as was demonstrated a little above. Therefore the fact of inspiration can become known to other men only by trustworthy testimony.

This testimony is either merely human or divine. If it is merely human testimony, then necessarily in the series of witnesses, whatever it be supposed to be, the first witness on whom the authority of the rest depends is the inspired man himself, because to him alone immediately, and to the rest, apart from divine testimony, it can become known only from his testimony.

Although human testimony concerning an internal supernatural fact, such as inspiration is, deserves belief with far greater difficulty than testification concerning external facts subject to the senses, and although such an internal fact, in nearly the same way as speculative truth, is not the proper object of human testimony, on account of the facility of illusion in the witness and the difficulty for others of certainly knowing the exclusion of illusion; I would not, however, affirm that, absolutely speaking, there could not be such authority in the witness as to deserve human faith.

II. But whatever be the case concerning this matter, the fact of inspiration is under the hypothesis proposed not by God, whether immediately through Himself or mediately through a divine legate, but is proposed by merely human testimony¹; hence not on account of the authority of God revealing (who is supposed to have nowise revealed this fact) but solely on account of the authority of the attesting man, and thus with not divine but human and fallible faith, is it believed that the things written in the book are the word of God. Wherefore if a book is to be so received that this sole reason, that some sentence is written in that book, must suffice and induce the obligation of believing with divine faith that that sentence is the word of God, and much more if in this manner and as of such authority the book be proposed to the universal Church; then indeed human testimony concerning the fact of inspiration does not suffice², but divine testimony is altogether required.

Now a) the Sacred Scriptures are received and must be received by the universal Church, indeed by all who by any right are called Christians, as inspired in such a way that, for this sole reason that some sentence is contained in these books, it is believed and must be believed with divine faith to be the word of God revealed through the writing itself. Therefore the fact of inspiration also, containing the reason why what is comprehended in the book is to be believed with divine faith to be the word of God, must be believed with divine faith; and consequently it must be established not by merely human but by divine testification. For if it were established by merely human authority that a book is inspired by God, not only would the existence of the word of God in that book be established by merely human faith on account of the authority of man alone; but also faith in the truth of the things written in the book would ultimately be resolved into assent on account of the authority of man. For even if one were to say that he believes those things to be true because he believes them to be in the book the word inspired by God, and thus that he believes on account of the authority of God speaking through the book; yet since this very thing, that God speaks in that book, he neither knows nor believes from any other source than solely from the authority and testimony of man, it is evident that the ultimate foundation of such faith in the truth of the things written in the book would be merely human authority³. b) If the question is considered polemically in controversy with those Protestants who still admit revelation, the reasoning is not less evident. For they require proposition through an inspired book as a necessary condition for rendering divine faith to the truth proposed, because through an inspired book the Holy Spirit speaks to us. If, therefore, it were believed on merely human testimony that the book is inspired, by that very fact the truths contained in the book could not be believed as the inspired words of the Holy Spirit except on human testimony; the whole faith would therefore rest upon the authority of the man testifying to the inspiration of the book, and not upon divine authority. This they themselves confess, and therefore they seek other reasons besides human testimony from which to receive the books as inspired. But those reasons are null; they are either gratuitous assumptions or at most conjectures, as was demonstrated in the preceding thesis. Since, therefore, from what has been said in this thesis the inspiration of the books cannot become known except through testimony, and this testimony, in relation to the Scriptures as the foundation of divine faith, cannot be merely human; it remains that all confess that the fact of the inspiration of the Scriptures cannot, as it ought, become known except by divine testimony.

It is evident per se that there is no question of the necessity of an immediate divine testimony, but that a divine testimony mediated through a divine legate accredited by God with motives of credibility suffices, whether the first promulgator of the divine attestation be the inspired man himself or another to whom God has immediately revealed the inspiration of the book.

It is likewise evident that, where the question concerns the criterion for knowing not now the essence but the existence of inspiration, there is no question of inspiration considered abstractly, what it is, of which we spoke above, but in concreto of the inspired books themselves, which they are. Concerning the individual inspired books, therefore, holds all that we have said of the manner in which inspiration becomes known; nor otherwise than from divine testimony can the number of the books and the individual books of inspired Scripture, as it ought, become known.

On the twofold way in which the divine testimony concerning the inspired books has been preserved to us.

« The divine testimony concerning the inspiration of very many of those books » which are received among the Scriptures by Christians with common agreement, » has been preserved to us also in the apostolic writings; yet concerning the entire canon of the books which even the Protestants have retained, it can be established » only by the testimony preserved by Tradition alone. »

By the very fact that it is a question of the holy Scriptures to be received and believed by the whole Church, the divine testimony concerning these Scriptures certainly belongs to the deposit of Catholic revelation. But Catholic revelation was completed through Christ and through the Holy Spirit in the Apostles (on Tradition, th. XXII). This testimony, therefore, this revelation concerning the inspired Scriptures and the books of the Scriptures, could not have been handed down in a subsequent age of the Church, but must necessarily have come to the Church from the Apostles themselves. No books, therefore, can be inspired for the Church herself concerning whose inspiration, now in the New Testament with revelation already completed, the divine testimony either does not exist in the deposit of revelation, or did not already exist in the apostolic age; although, absolutely speaking, there could have existed in the Old Testament, when the deposit of faith was still to be completed and unfolded through new successive revelations (on Tradition, th. XXV), inspired books whose revelation of inspiration was finally made by Christ or by the Holy Spirit through the Apostles and handed down to the Christian Church (above, th. III, Coroll. 3).

On these suppositions, that divine testimony could not have been preserved to us except either in Tradition alone or, besides Tradition (taken in the strict sense, cf. on Tradition, th. II), also in the apostolic writings.

I. First, then, we say that the divine testimony concerning the inspiration of several books which we have in the canon has been preserved also in the apostolic writings. This is evidently established from what was said in the preceding theses I and II. For from them it is concluded that at least the whole Scripture admitted by the Synagogue in the time of Christ and the Apostles is confirmed and proposed as inspired by the testimony of Christ himself and of the Apostles preserved also in the evangelical and apostolic writings — that is, that the canon of the Jews existing at that time, insofar as it is affirmans, is confirmed by the written divine testimony.

Although it has been called into controversy which were all and the only books comprehended in the canon of the Jews, yet concerning many of these books which we have in the Christian canon there is and can be no doubt that they were in the canon of the Jews in the time of Christ and the Apostles; to these, therefore, certainly belongs the divine testimony preserved in the apostolic writings, proposing and confirming the sacred Scriptures of the Jews as inspired. This is so evident as to need no proof; for what else but certainly many of the books which are in our canon is indicated by the division into three classes, and the express appeal to individual books, and the citation of texts from them¹, which stands forth as made by Christ and by the Apostles in the apostolic writings?

Nay, since in the apostolic writings there stands an express testimony (2 Tim. III. 15. 16.) for the inspiration of the whole collection of books which at that time were acknowledged by the Jews as belonging to Scripture, it can be determined by name to which all books — though not for that reason already to which alone — that written testimony is certainly referred, if it is established which were the books comprehended at that time in the Scripture acknowledged by the Jews as divine. But it is established by historical arguments, sufficiently for the purpose, that in the collection of the Jews at that time there existed at least all those books which they still now have in their canon and which are commonly called protocanonical.

1°. From the Fathers of the second to the fifth century who describe one by one the books of the Jewish canon, as Melito (in Eusebius IV. 26.), Origen (Eusebius IV. 25.), Epiphanius (On Measures and Weights n. 4. 22. 23; Heresies VIII. n. 6.), Hilary (Prologue to the Psalms n. 15.), Jerome (Helmeted Prologue, and elsewhere); likewise from the Jewish writings of that time (see Buxtorf, Tiberias ch. 11.), it is most certain that at least from the second Christian century all these books were in the canon of the Jews. But it is incredible that the Jews, within the time that elapsed from Christ and the Apostles down to that age, should have received into the canon some books which they had not yet had in it in the time of Christ and the Apostles, without any trace of this fact surviving in history. This is incredible if one considers the extent of this change, which would have had to take place, with no one protesting, throughout the whole world where the Jews were dispersed; and it becomes much more unbelievable still if at the same time there is taken into account their exceeding veneration for the sacred books, in which to add or take away or change anything they deemed the greatest sacrilege².

2°. Thereto is added that this canon, as the Christian Fathers of the first centuries diligently inquired it out from the Jews, and as the Jewish masters themselves recount it, is easily shown to agree with that very canon which Josephus reports from the persuasion and faith of his nation shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem, and which he testifies had already remained unchanged for a long time (cf. above, th. I.). Josephus numbers twenty-two books: namely, five of Moses, thirteen of the prophets, four which contain hymns and precepts of morals. Now if one inspects the naming and division of the books among the Jews, as exhibited by Melito, Origen, Hilary, Jerome, Epiphanius, and the Talmudists, everywhere twenty-two books are numbered according to the number of the Hebrew letters, so that besides the five of Moses and the four moral books (of Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles) there remain thirteen of the prophets in this reckoning: 1. Josue, 2. Judges with Ruth, 3. Samuel (1 and 2 Kings), 4. Kings (3 and 4 Kings), 5. Chronicles (1 and 2 Paralipomenon), 6. Esdras (1 and 2 Esdras), 7. Esther³, 8. Isaias, 9. Jeremias with Lamentations, 10. Ezechiel, 11. Daniel, 12. the Twelve Minor Prophets⁴, 13. Job. Those who think that the two books of Paralipomenon, the two of Esdras, and Esther cannot be comprehended in Josephus among the thirteen books of the prophets, but that these five books were received later — bringing forward as the reason for their assertion that these books are not prophetic (Haneberg, History of Biblical Revelation, p. 696. cf. above p. 366.) — seem altogether to neglect the testimonies of the ancient Fathers and of the Jews, and fail to attend to the contrary reasons: namely, that Josephus uses these books no differently than the rest; that he takes the name of prophets in the biblical and theological sense, for inspired men; and, finally, that such a late insertion into the canon is shown false by ineluctable arguments. See th. IV. n. II.

This being so, it is sufficiently established that at least those books which still belong to the canon of the Hebrews were already comprehended in the collection of the Scriptures in the time of Christ and the Apostles. But Christ and the Apostles approved that collection as of inspired books by a testimony consigned also in the apostolic writings, as is clear from the testimonies adduced in theses I and II, and expressly from 2 Tim. III. 15. 16. (on which passage see th. II. n. II. 3°.). Therefore the divine testimony concerning the inspiration of very many books which we have in the canon has been preserved to us also in the apostolic writings. Cf. the distinguished Welte in the Tübingen Quarterly Review, 1855. pp. 68. ff.

II. By that written divine testimony it can indeed be established that those books of the Old Testament belong to the Scriptures and are therefore inspired (cf. th. II.); but the same testimony by no means makes us certain that they alone are inspired Scripture, nor does it teach anything concerning the inspired books of the New Testament.

1°. From that testimony it is not established whether Christ and the Apostles, in the completion and consummation of revelation, handed down still other Scriptures besides those; for the testimony is affirmans — that these books are inspired — but not excludens — that there are no other inspired books of the Old Testament. Hence from that written attestation it cannot be defined whether the canon of the Jews was complete and closed, or incomplete and to be supplemented by a new revelation from Christ and the Apostles. This matter can be deemed defined by the affirming testimony, so long as that alone is considered, all the less because a) all Christians, even the Protestants themselves, confess that the Apostles handed down to the Churches as inspired other books — namely, the Scriptures of the New Testament, though of these there is no mention in that testimony; because b) it is certainly established that among the Jews, besides those mentioned, there were other books held in great veneration, concerning which — because « the succession of the prophets was not sufficiently ascertained and continuous » (p. 319.) — they remained doubtful whether they were of the same character and authority as those former ones; nay, c) it must be deemed at least probable that the Hellenist Jews, whose Greek Bibles the Apostles are established to have used, had among the Scriptures other books besides those numbered. Therefore, in the first place, the Protestants, by the testimony consigned in the apostolic writings, cannot be certain whether their canon, in which they have retained only the protocanonical books of the Old Testament, is not mutilated, and whether thus some part of the revealed word — which they think is contained in the Scriptures alone — is not lacking to them. But of this canon more will be said below.

2°. The Protestants, and all Christians who vindicate this name for themselves on any plausible ground, have in their canon the books of the New Testament, at least the protocanonical ones ⁵. Concerning the inspiration of these, therefore, there must be established for us a divine testimony preserved down to us and proposed to us (th. VI.) which, as we have already said, can have been preserved only either by Tradition alone or at the same time also in the apostolic writings. But concerning the inspiration of these books — if inquiry is made not merely in a confused way about the existence of some Scriptures of the New Testament, but if the whole collection and all and each books determinately are considered — there exists no testimony in the apostolic writings. Therefore concerning the inspiration of all the Scriptures which even the Protestants have retained, nothing can be established except by the divine testimony preserved by Tradition alone.

Some books of the New Testament are mentioned in the apostolic writings as belonging to the Scriptures — and therefore (from what was demonstrated in th. I. and II.) as inspired — only once or at most twice. The more certain passage is 2 Pet. III. 16, where the epistles of Paul are numbered by Peter among the Scriptures. « Our most dear brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, hath written to you (the Churches of Asia), as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things (that, awaiting the coming of the Lord, they should strive to be found immaculate, and should account the longanimity of the Lord as salvation), in which⁶ are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures (ὡς καὶ τὰς λοιπὰς γραφὰς), to their own perdition. » When Peter says that unlearned men wrest the things that are in the epistles of Paul as they do the other Scriptures, he plainly numbers those same epistles among the Scriptures; for such is the force of numbering implied by the partitive other. I shall grant, then, that the epistles of Paul written by that time (which were either plainly all of them or all except 2 Timothy) are numbered among the Scriptures by a divine testimony preserved in an apostolic epistle. But that this appellation of Scripture suffices to testify to inspiration can be gathered from the other scriptural testimonies and has been demonstrated above.

But a) who, pray, will persuade you that all the other books of the New Testament are numbered among the Scriptures by this testimony of Peter? Nay, it is quite evident that not all the books can be comprehended by those words, since not all had even been written yet. For Peter wrote this second epistle shortly before his martyrdom, in the year 66 or 67 of the vulgar era, whereas the writings of John — his Gospel, that is, as well as his epistles and the Apocalypse — did not appear until nearly twenty years later. Moreover, b) this very epistle of Peter is among those books whose genuineness and apostolic origin can be certainly proved and placed beyond controversy only from Tradition understood in the Catholic sense; whence the divinity itself and the value of the written testimony assumed for proving the inspiration of the other books — and consequently the inspiration itself of those other books — must ultimately be referred back to proof from Tradition. Hence, finally, c) those Protestants who have repudiated this second epistle of Peter are destitute even of this written testimony for proving the inspiration of the Scriptures of the New Testament.

The other written testimony could be 1 Tim. V. 18, where it is read as follows: « For the Scripture saith: Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn; and: the labourer is worthy of his hire. » The former sentence is taken from Deut. XXV. 4; the latter, which according to the interpretation of the Vulgate is the citation of some passage of Scripture, in the words as conceived occurs nowhere except in Luke X. 7. If this is so, and unless perhaps the Apostle is only applying as to the sense what is prescribed in Deut. XXIV. 14. concerning wages to be rendered to labourers, St. Paul here numbers the Gospel of Luke among the Scriptures. But this matter is not certain enough, and even if it is admitted, you will prove nothing from it for the inspiration of all the books of the canon of the New Testament. For proving this, therefore, no testimony is to be found in the apostolic writings; but it has come down to us in no other way than by Tradition alone.

Scholion. Unless what has been said is rightly understood, what we assert concerning the books of the New Testament will seem not sufficiently coherent with what we concede concerning the books of the Old Testament. To some, moreover, less attentive to the sense in which we here understand Tradition, we shall seem besides to have conceded too much and even to have written contradictions.

1°. As regards the books of the Old Testament, once the number and canon of the books which were of authority among the Jews in the time of Christ and the Apostles has been historically proved, we concede that the testimony of Christ and the Apostles concerning the whole collection in common, consigned in the apostolic writings, suffices so that from that written testimony itself the inspiration of all these books must be deemed revealed. Why, then, once the collection of the books of the New Testament has been historically proved, is not the testimony of Peter in the same way enough for demonstrating the inspiration of all the books of this collection?

The answer is not difficult. For both the written divine testimonies and the historical proof as regards the books of the Old Testament are very different from the history and the written divine testimony as regards the books of the New Testament. As regards those former books, express testimonies stand forth in the apostolic writings by which all the books existing at that time in the canon of the Synagogue are confirmed by Christ and by the Apostles as inspired, and are reckoned to inspired Scripture. Let the testimonies adduced in th. I. and II. be weighed, above all 2 Tim. III. 15. 16. Then, moreover, it is demonstrated with historical evidence that at least all those books which the Jews still have in their canon were already at that time in the same. Whence the written divine testimony evidently belongs to all these books. In this argumentation the historical demonstration is only the application of the revealed universal proposition to the singular objects which are demonstrated to be comprehended under the universal proposition. If such an application prevented the singular object from being revealed and from being sufficiently proposed as revealed, mediate revelation and faith universally would be subverted: « unless we had rational souls, we could not believe. » Thus in the universal proposition by which it is revealed that all the posterity of Adam contract original sin (excepting, of course, Christ, and excepting the most holy Mother of God), it is already revealed that individual determinate men have contracted sin. For the natural knowledge that these men too are men drawing their origin from Adam is only (as I have said) the application of the universal and revealed proposition to singular objects. By the written divine testimony it is revealed that all the books comprehended in the time of Christ and the Apostles in the collection of the Scriptures of the Synagogue are books of inspired Scripture; but in that collection there were evidently comprehended at least all these books which the Jews still have in their canon; therefore by the written divine testimony it is revealed that all these books are books of inspired Scripture. The conclusion of this syllogism is contained wholly in the major; the minor only evidently shows the comprehension of the consequent in the major. Nay, if the minor proposition is enunciated thus: but in that collection there were comprehended at least many of the books which are still in the canon, this very minor has for itself the written divine testimony, as is established from the citations made most frequently by Christ and by the Apostles.

But as regards the books of the New Testament, the written testimony of 2 Pet. III. 16. cannot be referred except to the books then already existing in the collection of the Scriptures. But a) some of the books of the New Testament which we have in the canon were at that time not even yet written; b) concerning several others it cannot be evidently proved by historical arguments alone, with Tradition understood in the Catholic sense set aside, that they were even then held in the census of the Scriptures. Therefore from that written testimony the inspiration of the whole collection of the books of the New Testament which we now have, and which even the Protestants have retained, cannot be proved.

2°. The other difficulty which can present itself is the following. We seem to concede that from the Scriptures themselves the inspiration of very many books can be proved, precision being made from Tradition; but how can this be done, since both the books to be proved and the books furnishing the proof have been preserved to us only by Tradition, and only by Tradition can their genuineness and integrity be established? Moreover, it might seem that greater force is here conceded to proofs from the Scriptures independently of Tradition than was conceded in the Treatise on Tradition. The answer to these points can be drawn from what we said on Tradition, th. XXI. n. II.

a) The preservation and proof of the genuineness and integrity of the books certainly cannot be understood except from Tradition, at least historical; yet this proof can be instituted, and as regards several books — among which certainly are the Gospels and the epistles of Paul — rendered evident, with precision made from authentic Tradition understood in the Catholic sense. But once the genuineness of these books is proved, there follows the truth and divinity of the doctrine consigned in them. Whence from the testimonies of Christ and of the Apostles, which from the proved genuineness of the books are proved to be true and divine testimonies, the inspiration of the other books can be proved with precision made from Tradition understood in the Catholic sense.

b) The books from which the testimonies are drawn are not, however, supposed necessarily as inspired; but it suffices that they be proved genuine, that is, written by the Evangelists and Apostles to whom they are attributed; for from this very fact the veracity and divinity of the doctrine is sufficiently established.

c) We do not say that this demonstration of the inspiration of the books from the written testimonies is suited to all, for all circumstances, for settling controversies, for all books. Here we only inquire whether there are written apostolic testimonies in which the inspiration of some books is demonstrated to be enunciated — for those who are capable of grasping the demonstration and who profess that they admit the apostolic doctrine as divine revelation without controversy. This we certainly concede; yet at the same time what was said in the Treatise on Tradition remains firm. Namely, just as generally with regard to other dogmas, so also with regard to this dogma concerning the inspiration and the number of the inspired books, the proposition necessary for preserving unity of faith in Catholicity is through authentic Tradition understood in the Catholic sense; and this is the ordinary economy instituted by Christ for the preservation and propagation of the faith. Nay more, as is established from what was said in this thesis, the inspiration of all the books — whether contained in the Catholic canon or even retained by the Protestants — is one of those heads of doctrine which are not written, but have been preserved to us by Tradition alone under the assistance of the Holy Spirit.

The principles of Protestantism are repugnant to the proof of the canon of the Scriptures which the Reformers retained.

« For the Protestants, concerning this divine testimony, and consequently concerning their entire canon of the Scriptures, as is fitting for the foundation of the doctrine of faith, nothing can be established even from Tradition itself, so long as they admit it only in that sense which they themselves call historical tradition, and which in its entirety is to be judged and measured by Scripture as the sole rule of faith. »

In their symbolic books the so-called orthodox Protestants profess these three principles: 1°. that the books which they have in their canon, all and alone, are to be believed to be the written word of God and divinely inspired; 2°. that no divine attestation has been preserved or could have been preserved by Tradition alone in such a way that from it anything can be established concerning any dogma, and that it constitute an object of faith; 3°. that Tradition concerning dogmas and concerning the understanding of the word of God can be admitted only as historical in this sense, that from Tradition as from a historical testimony is learned how the word of God was understood by Christians in different ages — which Tradition indeed is of itself of no authority, but is to be measured and judged by individuals according to the sole norm, which is Scripture.

Nevertheless these same Protestants, at least for the most part, disputing with the antichrists whom they have in their communion, when the reason is demanded by which they hold all these books in their canon as inspired, appeal to Tradition, because they see that no other way of demonstration lies open. We now say that this demonstration cannot be instituted unless, with the principles laid down as fundamental by the Protestants rejected, the Catholic principle of Tradition is admitted; and thus from the principles of Protestantism no way lies open for demonstrating the inspiration of at least most of the books of the New Testament, which books nevertheless they hold as the inspired word of God, that is, as the sole rule of faith.

Tradition, indeed, on their principles, only reports the opinion of the ancient Christians, and can teach only this one thing: that all these books were held by the ancient Church as belonging to sacred Scripture and as inspired. But whether this opinion of the ancients is true or false is to be judged by individuals according to the sole norm of the word of God consigned in the Scriptures. Now if they understood this sole norm of judgment only negatively — that nothing can be admitted in Tradition which is repugnant to the written word of God — this would indeed be most true, but it contributes nothing to the demonstration in question. For that the Tradition of the ancient Church concerning the inspiration of the books of the New Testament which they have in their canon is not repugnant to the written word they will indeed easily prove; but neither is the Tradition concerning other books, which the Protestants have nevertheless repudiated, any more repugnant; and in general, from mere non-repugnance with the written word they cannot conclude the truth of the testimony contained in Tradition concerning the inspiration of their books — but this truth of the testimony must be drawn from the authority of Tradition itself. Then, however, Scripture is no longer the sole norm according to which all dogmas are to be judged; nor is it any longer true that there can be or is no dogma handed down by Tradition alone — but, with the principle of Protestantism abandoned, the Catholic principle of Tradition must be admitted, and from it, together with the other dogmas, the entire canon of the Scriptures must also be adopted according to the Tradition of the Catholic Church.

But if — what in reality the principle of Protestantism holds — Scripture is the sole rule of faith, and if Tradition and the opinion of the ancient Church in general, and consequently also the Tradition concerning the inspiration of the books of the New Testament, is to be judged according to the norm of Scripture in such a way that a positive testimony of Scripture is demanded for proving a dogma contained in Tradition and in the opinion of the ancient Church, and thus the silence of Scripture suffices for repudiating Tradition and for judging the opinion of the ancient Church false or at least doubtful, then assuredly they cannot prove the inspiration of these books from Tradition either. For Scripture is altogether silent concerning the number and canon of the books of the New Testament which the Protestants have adopted. Therefore, if the silence of Scripture is the reason for judging Tradition false or doubtful, then for them that historical Tradition of theirs can be of no value for proving the inspiration of the books of the New Testament.

Moreover, from this very thing which we demonstrated in the preceding thesis — that the testimony concerning the inspiration of all the books of the canon, even as admitted by the Protestants, has been preserved to us by Tradition alone — you will easily see the evident contradiction in the three principles of the Deformers which we recalled at the outset. For in the first principle there is implicitly contained the affirmation of that which in the second principle is explicitly denied: namely, that there is some dogma handed down by Tradition alone. Likewise in the third principle there is laid down a norm for judging Tradition by which the value of that same Tradition is explicitly denied which in the first principle is implicitly affirmed. See on Tradition, th. XX. n. III.