Summa summae S. Thomae, Tomus III

You will ask 1° how holy Scripture is divided,

I answer. 1°. It is divided into the Old and the New Testament. The Old Testament is the collection of sacred books which promise the liberator to come, together with the precepts of the old law. The New Testament is the collection of sacred books which present the promised liberator as present, together with the precepts of the new law.

The canonical books of the Old Testament are forty-five in number; the canonical books of the New Testament twenty-seven: all seventy-two. So Trent, sess. IV, Decree on the Canonical Scriptures.

[In the aforesaid decree there are enumerated singly, as canonical, all the books contained in our Vulgate edition.

After this enumeration the following canon is read : « But if anyone shall not have received these same books entire with all their parts, as they are wont to be read in the Catholic Church and are found in the ancient Latin Vulgate edition, as sacred and canonical, and shall have despised knowingly and deliberately the aforesaid traditions ; let him be anathema. »

The Vatican Council decrees the same, constit. Dei Filius, chap. 2, on Revelation: « Indeed those books of the Old and New Testament, entire with all their parts, as they are enumerated in the decree of that same [Tridentine] council, and are found in the ancient Latin Vulgate edition, are to be held as sacred and canonical. » In what precisely the canonicity of the sacred books consists, the holy council explains afterwards, whose text was reported at the end of the preceding article.]

2° The canonical books, both of the Old and of the New Testament, are divided into protocanonical and deuterocanonical. Protocanonical are those concerning which there never has been doubt; deuterocanonical are those concerning which, before Innocent I and the third Council of Carthage, some had doubt.

Yet they are not of less authority than the protocanonical; because both in the former and in the latter there is the same infallible Church proposing them. Nor does it stand in the way that there has sometimes been doubt about the deuterocanonicals, as was said; for that doubt was not positive on the part of the Church, as if she had judged or declared them doubtful, but on the part of certain Fathers : which doubt the Church tolerated in them for a while, until at length, the matter having been more fully discussed and elucidated by tradition, she inserted them in the canon.

(The deuterocanonical Scriptures are : from the Old Testament, Esther, Tobias, Judith, Baruch, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, the Hymn of the three children, Dan., III, the History of Susanna and of the dragon, ibid., XIII and XIV, the Prayer of Azarias, the Prayer of Jeremiah near the end of the Lamentations, the first and second book of Machabees. From the New Testament, the last chapter of Mark, from the place : And Jesus rising up; the history of the bloody sweat of Christ and of his being comforted by an angel, Luc., XXII; the first epistle of John, chap. v, where that testimony : There are three who give testimony in heaven : the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one; the whole epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews; the epistles of James and Jude; the second epistle of Peter, the second and third of John, and finally his Apocalypse.

As apocryphal scriptures were rejected by the Church: the third and fourth book of Esdras, the third and fourth of Machabees, the Prayer of king Manasses captive in Babylon, the Appendix of the book of Job, where his genealogy is described, the Little Preface of the Lamentations which begins : And it came to pass, the Letter of Jesus to Abgarus the king, the Gospels which circulate under the names of Andrew, Bartholomew, Barnabas, Nicodemus and others.

The Protestants did not rest content with the Tridentine decree on the canonical books, dissenting among themselves, as in other matters, so also in fixing the canon of the sacred books. They expunge all the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament. But Luther and his followers repudiate also all the deuterocanonical books of the New Testament, namely the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistles of James and Jude, the second of Peter, the second and third of John and the Apocalypse; on the other hand the Calvinists admit all these books.

Care must nevertheless be taken that the opinion of all Protestants concerning the canon of the Scriptures is not the same. The more recent ones, who are called orthodox among themselves, admit more of the deuterocanonical books of the New Testament; others, whom they call heterodox, reject even more of the protocanonical ones, and although they cease not to appeal to the Scriptures as to the sole rule of faith, yet out of the Scriptures they determine that whatever does not agree with their errors, or is distasteful to carnal and proud wisdom, is to be expunged at pleasure. Among the cavils with which they attack the canon of the sacred books fixed by the Council of Trent, they say the ancient Fathers gave greater authority to the protocanonical books than to the rest. This perhaps happened when the holy Fathers refuted the Jews and heretics, against whom they drew arguments especially from those Scriptures whose divinity their adversaries themselves admitted; yet not so that they doubted the divine origin of the deuterocanonical books.

We are confined within limits too narrow for it to be permitted us to demonstrate the canonicity or authenticity of all the books which the innovators reject. These difficulties and several other critical questions were solved by the authors who applied themselves chiefly to sacred hermeneutics.]

3° The canonical books are divided into historical, prophetical and doctrinal.

You will ask 2° in what language holy Scripture was originally written.

I answer. The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew, except the books of Tobias, Judith, Esdras and Daniel, which in the time of the Babylonian captivity were written in the Chaldaic tongue of the Babylonians. There is excepted also the second book of Machabees, which, according to Jerome, was written in Greek. Some hold the same about the book of Wisdom; for the Greek tongue was familiar to the Jews.

The New Testament however was written at first in Greek, except the Gospel of St. Matthew, which was written in Hebrew or Syriac. Jerome, Theodoret and others more commonly hold the same about the Epistle to the Hebrews, against Origen and Clement of Alexandria.

Yet no autographs or original texts of holy Scripture now exist, but only copies and versions into other languages, such as the Chaldaic, Syriac, Greek and Latin.

[The editions or versions of holy Scripture are reduced to four classes. The first is the Hebrew edition, to which are reduced the Syriac, Samaritan and Chaldaic, which rather is a paraphrase than a version, teeming with the fables of the Jews and trifles of the Talmudists, and commonly called the Targum. The second is the Greek, which although manifold, is yet the first and more accurate of all, which seventy Interpreters compiled under Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, and which the Church used for about six hundred years. St. Lucian, and afterwards St. Jerome, corrected it vitiated with many defects by the lapse of time and the carelessness of copyists. The third is the Latin, and of the innumerable ones circulating in the age of SS. Jerome and Augustine it is chiefly threefold: namely the ancient, which St. Augustine calls the Italian, St. Jerome the common, St. Gregory the old, Orosius the vulgar; then the new, which was the version of St. Jerome, which St. Augustine ranked below the ancient, but Isidore preferred, and which was held in great price and veneration in the Church; finally that which was put together after the time of St. Gregory, neither from the whole ancient nor from the whole new, but exhibiting some books in the manner in which the ancient exhibited them, and others in that in which the new did. This is our present Vulgate, which has prevailed in the Church and been received by the usage of many centuries. The fourth, lastly, is the vernacular version, which, according to the variety of vernacular idioms, is and can be various and most diverse, and has either catholic or non-catholic authors.]

You will ask 3° what be the authority of the Hebrew and Greek text, and likewise of the edition of the Seventy.

I answer. The Hebrew and Greek text, as they now exist, are not authentic nor of unanswerable authority; they are nevertheless useful for many things.

Proof. First part. 1° Because the Church by her irreformable judgment has not approved them, nor declared them authentic, as she declared the Vulgate edition authentic, of which presently.

2° Because, although before Christ, indeed even after Christ, before Jerome, they were not notably depraved, yet now they abound with many and grave errors.

Proof. Second part. The Hebrew and Greek texts are useful, 1° for confirming the Latin Vulgate in many places; 2° for correcting the errors of typographers; 3° for determining the doubtful signification of the Vulgate; 4° while from the variety of codices it is doubted which is the common reading, we are helped to know it from the Hebrew and Greek texts; 5° they avail so that the force and propriety of words may be better perceived, and things obscure and difficult may be more easily understood.

What we said of the Hebrew and Greek texts must be said likewise of the version of the Seventy; for although in its beginning it was authentic, and even for a while after Christ was of great authority in the Church, yet now it is not authentic, nor of unanswerable authority, partly because the Church has not declared it authentic, partly because in the time of Jerome it was already notably corrupted, as the holy Doctor testifies in the preface to I Paralip. and in chap. XXX Isaiae and V Ezech.

Nor does it matter that Sixtus V, in the year 1586, orders the Greek version of the Seventy corrected by himself, « that it be received and retained by all. » For he does not order it received as authentic, but, as he says, as useful « for the understanding of the Latin Vulgate edition and of the ancient Fathers. »

You will ask 4° what be the authority of the Vulgate edition.

I answer. The Vulgate edition, and that alone, is authentic and the certain rule of faith.

Proof. This and this alone version is authentic, which the universal Church declared authentic by a solemn decree; for the Church is the infallible rule for discerning divine Scripture, as we proved in dissert. I of the preceding treatise, art. 2, and shall prove further below : whence that known saying of Augustine against the Epist. fundamenti, chap. 5, n. 6 : « I would not believe the Gospel, unless the authority of the Catholic

Church moved me. » Now the Church by solemn decree in the Council of Trent, sess. IV, chap. 1, declared the Vulgate edition authentic, and thus pronounced concerning that alone, not concerning the Hebrew or Greek texts, nor concerning any other version whatsoever. Therefore.

[Text of the aforesaid decree : « The same sacred synod, considering that no small utility can accrue to the Church of God if it be made known which of all the Latin editions of the sacred books now circulating is to be held as authentic, ordains and declares that this same ancient and vulgate edition, which by the long usage of so many centuries has been approved in the Church itself, be held as authentic in public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions, and that no one dare or presume to reject it under any pretext whatsoever. »

In order that the sacred text may remain intact, the same holy synod, by the same decree, « decrees and ordains that henceforth sacred Scripture, and above all this same ancient and vulgate edition, be printed in the most correct manner, and that no one be permitted to print or cause to be printed any books whatever on sacred matters without the name of the author, nor henceforth to sell them, or even keep them in his possession, unless they shall first have been examined and approved by the Ordinary, under penalty of anathema and of the fine appended in the canon of the latest Council of Lateran.]

You will ask 5° in what respects the Vulgate edition is authentic: whether in some only, and in which ?

I answer. Some maintain that it is authentic in all things; because Trent, sess. IV, chap. 1, orders under pain of anathema that all the books of Scripture, « with all their parts..., as they are found in the ancient Vulgate edition, be received as sacred and canonical. »

Nor does it stand in the way that there are still found in it certain defects; these, they say, are the errata of writers or typographers, or of rash emendators, which therefore are not parts, but wounds of the Vulgate edition, and which the Church does not approve while approving it.

Others, and as seems more commonly, will have it that it is authentic in those things only which pertain to faith and morals, or that it contains nothing repugnant to faith or good morals, whence there arose pernicious error in following it.

The reasons are : 1° Because cited Trent, after declaring the Vulgate authentic, orders that after this it be printed in the most correct manner. Therefore it supposes there are defects and faults in it. And after the correction of Sixtus V and Clement VIII errata are still found in it, as Clement VIII plainly hints in the diploma prefixed to his edition, saying that in this Vulgate edition certain things appeared to need changing which were deliberately not changed, and this is commonly acknowledged by learned men. 2° Because Andreas Vega, who was present at the Tridentine council, lib. V de Iustif., c. 9, says that the council « willed it be held authentic to this extent, that it might be certain to all that it had not been defiled by any error from which some pernicious dogma could be gathered in faith and morals, and therefore it added : « That no one should dare reject it under any pretext. »

And he adds that the cardinal of Holy Cross, who presided over that session, testified to him more than once, « that the Fathers willed to establish nothing more. »

They understand however that there pertain to faith and morals all those things which regard the mysteries of our religion and the counsels of the divine will, which assist faith and religion, nourish piety and form morals; but that certain names of places, cities, rivers, plants and the like do not pertain to faith and morals.

As regards the Tridentine decree, they understand it of the more notable parts.

You will ask 6° whether it be lawful to read holy Scripture in the vulgar tongue.

I answer. 1° That the reading of holy Scripture in the vulgar tongue is not absolutely forbidden; because there is no law in the Church whereby it is absolutely forbidden.

I answer. 2° Nevertheless, the law standing, it is not permitted indiscriminately to all to read holy Scripture in the vulgar tongue, but to those only to whom it is conceded by bishops and inquisitors, or by their own prelates, if Regulars be concerned. So the Fourth Rule of the Index of the Council of Trent, which Pius IV, by the bull Dominici gregis given in the year 1564, and Clement VIII, by the bull Sacrosanctum, 1593, prefixed to this Index, commanded to be observed.

I said, « the law standing, » because in many places custom derogated from the law, and in some wholly abrogated it.

[The reading of holy Scripture in the vulgar tongue is not made lawful except under the conditions established in the aforesaid Fourth Rule of the Index, where it is read : « Whereas it is manifest from experience that, if the holy Bible be allowed everywhere indiscriminately in the vulgar tongue, more detriment than utility arises thence through the rashness of men, in this part let the judgment of the bishop or Inquisitor stand, so that, with the counsel of the parish priest or confessor, they can concede to them the reading of the versions by catholic authors in the vulgar tongue whom they shall understand able to take from such reading not loss but increase of faith and piety; which faculty let them have in writing.

« But whoever shall presume to read or possess these without such faculty cannot receive absolution of his sins, unless he first restore the Bibles to the Ordinary.

« But booksellers who, not having the aforesaid faculty, sell Bibles written in the vulgar idiom, or grant them in any other manner, let them lose the price of the books to be turned over to pious uses by the bishop, and let them undergo other penalties, according to the quality of the offense, at the judgment of the same bishop.

« Regulars truly can read or buy them only with the faculty had from their prelates. »

If the aforesaid prescriptions can now no longer be carried out entirely, especially as regards penalties, care must be taken that catholic booksellers and readers know and observe the law of the Church in this grave matter.

Since indeed the reading of vernacular versions can become perilous to many who are not sufficiently able to understand obscure passages, their publication is not permitted by the holy See or the bishops, unless notes be added by which the difficulties are unraveled.

The Council of Trent ordained, in the aforesaid decree on the edition and use of the sacred books : « Let no one be permitted to print or cause to be printed any books whatever on sacred matters, without the name of the author, nor to sell them henceforth, or even keep them in possession, unless they shall first have been examined and approved by the Ordinary, under penalty of anathema and of the fine appended in the canon of the latest Council of Lateran. » In the const. Apostolicas Sedis, the pecuniary penalty not renewed, it is declared that « those only are subject to the anathema who print or cause to be printed books treating of sacred matters without the approval of the Ordinary. » The S. Office, on December 22, 1880, decreed that « the censure reserved to no one inflicted upon those who print, or cause to be printed, books treating of sacred matters without the approval of the Ordinary, must be restricted to the books of the sacred Scriptures, as well as to annotations of the same treating of any things whatsoever belonging to sacred matters in general, that is, pertaining to religion, » — These things will be explained more fully in the treatise on Censures.

But the manner of proceeding in approving these versions was determined by the Council of Trent, ibid., in these words : « Let the examination itself of such books be given in writing, and thus it authentically appear on the front of the book, whether written or printed, and let the whole be done gratuitously, that is both the approval and the examination, so that what ought to be approved be approved, and what ought to be rejected be rejected. »

It must be noted that, by the instruction of Clement VIII added to the Rules of the Index concerning the printing of books, § 1, if there be just cause for concealing the name of the author, the name of him who examined and approved the book must be described.]