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READINGS
VATICAN II ON DIVINE REVELATION
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FR. KENNETH BAKER, S.J.
The Catholic faith is based on divine revelation. In its
Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei
Verbum, November 18, 1965) the Second Vatican
Council spelled out in some detail what the Church
believes and teaches with regard to divine revelation,
primarily as it is contained in the Bible.
The Catholic faith is based on divine revelation. The
Catholic Church knows that she was founded by Jesus
Christ, who is both God and man, and that she was
commissioned by Him to proclaim the Gospel of God's
love to all mankind. Jesus as the Word of God is the
fullness of God's revelation. He revealed to His disciples
the inner nature of God as tri-personal Father, Son and
Holy Spirit. He also revealed God's plan to redeem the
human race by His passion, death, and resurrection.
In its Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei
Verbum, November 18, 1965) the Second Vatican
Council spelled out in some detail what the Church
believes and teaches with regard to divine revelation,
primarily as it is contained in the Bible. Tradition is also
included, but the emphasis in the document is on the
written word in the holy Scriptures of the Old
Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT). Dei
Verbum, since it is a dogmatic constitution, is one of the
most important documents of the Council. It ranks
second only to the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church
(Lumen Gentium) and is printed in the second place in
the collection of Vatican II documents.
In what follows I will briefly summarize the prologue
and the six chapters of the Constitution and in the
process, I will make a few observations as a help to
understanding the document.
PROLOGUE (#1):
In the prologue the Council says that it hears the Word
of God with reverence and proclaims it with faith in
order to have fellowship with the Father and with his
Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:2-3). In accordance with
Tradition, the Fathers of the Council say they intend to
set forth the true doctrine on divine revelation and its
transmission. The Council wants the whole world to
hear the summons to salvation, so that through hearing
it may believe, through belief it may hope, through
hope it may come to love (#1).
The goal then is to proclaim the truth of the Gospel to
the whole world so that it may believe in Jesus Christ
and so arrive at the love of God.
CHAPTER I. DIVINE REVELATION ITSELF (##2-6): The
basic idea of revelation is to make known something
that is hidden. In the case of divine revelation, it means
that God makes known to man Himself and the
mysterious plan of His will for man and the world.
His will was that men should have access to the Father,
through Christ, the Word made flesh, in the Holy Spirit,
and thus become sharers in the divine nature (Eph.
2:18; 2 Pet. 1:4) (#2).
How does God do this? He does it by deeds and words
in the history of salvation as recorded in the OT and in
the NT. The miraculous works of God in salvation history
verify the words of the prophets like Abraham and
Moses, and the words explain the works and bring to
light the mystery they contain (#2).
God revealed Himself in a beginning way to Abraham,
Moses and the prophets and so adopted Israel as His
own people. He taught them to look for the promised
Savior and Messiah and, in this way, He set the stage for
the arrival of the Gospel in Jesus Christ (#3).
Finally, He sent His only begotten Son, who is the light
of the world, to dwell among men and to tell them
about the inner life of God and His plan for the world.
Jesus Christ completed and perfected revelation; He
proved who He was by His words and His miracles,
especially by His glorious resurrection from the dead.
Jesus established a new and eternal covenant between
God and man which will never be replaced; this means
that there will be no new public revelation of God's will
before the end of the world and the Second Coming of
Christ in glory (#4).
The proper response of man to God's revelation on
Himself is faith by which he freely assents to revelation
and commits his entire self to God (#5).
But faith is a gift of God, so man must have the grace of
God which illuminates his mind and moves his will to
believe; to do this he needs the interior helps of the
Holy Spirit, as Jesus said in John 6:44, no one can come
to me unless my Father draws him.
In #6 the Council repeats its definition of revelation
and quotes two passages from Vatican I:
1) that God can be known with certainty by the natural
light of human reason from considering the created
world, and
2) that those things, which in themselves are not
beyond the grasp of human reason, can, in the present
condition of the human race, be known by all men with
ease, with firm certainty, and without the
contamination of error (#6, citing Denz. 3004 and 3005).
CHAPTER II. THE TRANSMISSION OF DIVINE
REVELATION (##7-10):
This chapter answers the question: How is divine
revelation, which was given to mankind thousands of
years ago in the OT and by Jesus in the NT, handed on
from generation to generation?
The answer is that Christ the Lord, who is the fullness of
the revelation of God, taught the Apostles all that God
wished to communicate to man and then commanded
them to preach the Gospel to all nations, beginning with
Israel. This is what they did; they also bore witness to all
that He said and did in His earthly life. As the Apostles
advanced in age and died as martyrs for Christ, those
still living, and their co-workers committed the message
of salvation to writing.
Jesus founded His Church, which He willed to last until
His Second Coming, on Peter and the Apostles. In order
that the Gospel might be preserved intact, the Apostles
appointed bishops as their successors and conferred
their own teaching authority on them. Thus, this sacred
Tradition and the sacred Scriptures are like a mirror, in
which the Church, during its pilgrim journey here on
earth, contemplates God (#7).
In this way the apostolic preaching is preserved without
corruption until the end of time. The teaching of the
Church on faith and morals is based on that original
preaching. But it is not static. There is growth in the
understanding of the faith, under the guidance of the
Holy Spirit, which takes place through reflection on
God's Word by saints and bishops and theologians. As
time goes by the Church advances in its understanding
of what has been revealed and applies the ancient
truths to new problems and circumstances, such as
changes in the social order and in the physical and life
sciences.
Tradition and Scripture are closely bound together since
they come from the same divine source. The Bible is the
speech of God as it is put down in writing under the
breath of the Holy Spirit (#9). Tradition transmits
faithfully the Word of God which was given to the
Apostles by Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and it also
transmits it to the bishops who are the successors of
the Apostles. So, the Church draws her certainty about
revealed truth both from Scripture and from Tradition,
both of which must be treated with equal reverence.
In #10 the Council makes a very important statement
that sums up and basically concludes a theological
debate which has been going on since the Council of
Trent in the 16th century: Sacred Tradition and sacred
Scripture make up a single sacred deposit of the Word
of God, which is entrusted to the Church (emphasis
added). The Council thus takes a position here that
there are not two sources of revelation, but only one
Tradition and Scripture together.
Every written document is subject to interpretation,
especially when it was written hundreds or thousands of
years ago. Thus, we have a Supreme Court to interpret
the Constitution of the United States. The Council says
that the only authentic interpreter of the Word of God,
whether written or in the form of Tradition, is the
teaching office of the Church, which is also called the
Magisterium. In His Providence God has so arranged
things that Tradition, Scripture and the Magisterium are
so connected and associated that one of them cannot
stand without the others (#10). This means that
problems or questions about true faith and morals must
be solved by resorting to these three basic sources.
CHAPTER III. SACRED SCRIPTURE: ITS DIVINE
INSPIRATION AND INTERPRETATION (##11-13):
The Church holds that the 46 books of the OT and the
27 books of the NT are inspired by God. Inspiration
means that, in some mysterious way, God is the primary
author of those books; by means of His grace He
worked through the minds and wills of the sacred
authors, moving them to put down in writing those
truths He wished to communicate to all mankind. Since
God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived, is the
author of the Bible, the Council says that we must
acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly,
faithfully and without error, teach that truth which God,
for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to
the sacred Scriptures (# 11).
Those books were written down over a period of more
than a thousand years; the language and cultural
situation were vastly different from what we know.
Consequently, the interpreter of the Bible, if he is to
ascertain correctly what God wished to tell us, must
strive to and the literal meaning the sacred writers had
in mind. This means that he must know the original
language, culture, customs, date of writing, place, and
author.
The interpreter must also know the different literary
forms used by the ancient authors laws, history, poetry,
prayers, parables, prophecy, wisdom, and so forth.
Correct interpretation also requires that the reader
must keep the divine authorship in mind; he ought not
to forget that there is unity in all of Scripture because it
has one divine author. So, there are no errors in the
Bible and any conclusions drawn from Scripture must
take into account the whole Tradition of the Church and
the analogy of faith, that is, what the Church has always
taught. The Magisterium of the Church is deeply
concerned about the way in which the Bible is
interpreted, and all interpretation of the Bible is subject
to the judgment of the Church, which exercises the
divinely given commission of overseeing and guarding
the interpretation of God's holy Word. One must never
forget that the Bible was produced by the Church; it is
her book, and she is the only one who can determine
with authority the meaning of any disputed text.
CHAPTER IV. THE OLD TESTAMENT (##14-16):
God revealed Himself to man gradually. He revealed
Himself to Abraham and through Abraham He gained
for Himself a people the people of Israel. He established
a covenant with them and gave them the promises of a
Savior or Messiah who would eventually come. So, His
plan for the salvation of mankind had its beginning with
Israel and is written down in her sacred books. The OT
contains 46 books law, history, prophets, and wisdom
books and all of them, in one way or another, point to
the Messiah, the one who was to come. So, the whole
OT is a preparation for the Redeemer who is the
Godman, Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary in
Bethlehem about 1700 years after the time of Abraham.
Everything in the OT points to Jesus the Messiah, some
things more clearly than others. Thus, we find dramatic
types of Christs such as Abraham, Moses, David, the
prophets, Job, and so forth. Accordingly, the Catholic
Church reveres the OT and includes all the books in her
own Bible. The Council says that those books give
expression to a lively sense of God and that they are a
storehouse of sublime teaching on God and of sound
wisdom on human life, as well as a wonderful treasury
of prayers (# 15).
Quoting St. Augustine, the document says God, who is
the author of all the books of the OT and NT, in his
wisdom and providence has brought it about that the
New should be hidden in the Old and that the Old
should be made clear in the New (#16). There are more
than 350 references to the OT in the NT. The books of
the OT attain new meaning in the NT, and they also
shed new light on many of the things that Jesus did and
said. So, the more one understands the books of the OT,
the better he will understand the NT. They can only
strengthen his faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the
living God.
CHAPTER V THE NEW TESTAMENT (##17-20):
The chapter begins with the strong statement that the
Word of God is the power of God for salvation to
everyone who has faith (cf. Rom. 1:16). This power and
this faith are set forth clearly in the writings of the NT.
For it tells the story of the incarnation of the Son of
God, what He did and what He said in order to redeem
the human race. He is the one who has the words of
eternal life, and He communicates that life through
grace to all who believe in Him. So, the books of the NT
are a divine witness to all that Jesus did and said, they
explain who He is and why He came into this world.
The Council says that the most important books in the
NT are the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John because they are our principal source of
knowledge about the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.
The Church has always proclaimed and defended the
apostolic origin of the four Gospels. For Jesus
communicated the Good News to His Apostles; they
preached it everywhere and eventually they and other
apostolic men committed that preaching to writing in
what we call the four Gospels just mentioned.
The next very serious point has to do with the historical
value of the Gospels, that is, are they true? Do they
really tell us what Jesus did and said, or are they a pious
fabrication of those who lived perhaps many years after
the time of Jesus? The Church unequivocally defends
the historicity of the four Gospels and firmly maintains
that they truly and accurately tell us what Jesus did and
taught during his earthly life. So, the Gospels were
written by eyewitnesses (Matthew and John), or by the
companions of eyewitnesses (Mark and Luke). Helped
by the Holy Spirit, they wrote down what they
remembered and what they had preached for a number
of years, or they wrote down the testimony of others
who were eyewitnesses. Their purpose was that we
might know the full truth about Jesus the Christ (see
Luke 1:2-4) (#19).
In addition to the four Gospels, the NT also contains the
fourteen letters of St. Paul and the other apostolic
writings which were written under the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit. These writings clarify certain points of Jesus
teaching and apply it to the circumstances of the time.
Much of it is theological reflection on what God
accomplished through Jesus Christ. For Jesus had
promised to send the Holy Spirit on his Apostles (John
14 and 16) to guide them into all truth; He also said that
He Himself would be with them until the end of the
world (see Matt. 28:18-20).
CHAPTER VI. SACRED SCRIPTURE IN THE LIFE OF THE
CHURCH (##21-26):
The Church regards the divine Scriptures along with
Tradition as the supreme rule of her faith. It follows that
the Christian life and especially the worship of the
Church should be nourished and ruled by sacred
Scripture. The liturgy of the Sacraments, especially the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, is permeated with quotes
and references to the Bible.
All the faithful should have easy access to sacred
Scripture. For this reason, the Church encourages and
promotes good translations in the modern languages
which should be based on the original Hebrew and
Greek texts; she holds in high regard the Greek
Septuagint version of the OT, and the Latin Vulgate
edition which was produced by St. Jerome in the 4th
century.
The Church is taught by the Holy Spirit. In every
generation she strives to achieve a deeper
understanding of the sacred books which contain the
Word of God. Accordingly, she encourages the study of
the Eastern and Western Fathers and also the holy
liturgies of the various Catholic rites. The Council urges
exegetes and theologians to study the Scriptures and to
explain them, but always under the watchful eye of the
Magisterium. For explanation of the Bible is a work that
must be done in the Church, for the Church, and under
the direction of the Church.
The Word of God nourishes faith. So, the study of the
Scriptures enlightens the mind, strengthens the will,
and inflames the hearts of men with the love of God.
This section of the document strongly encourages
Scripture scholars to press forward in their work, but
always in accordance with the mind of the Church (#23).
Catholic theology is based on sacred Scripture,
Tradition, and the Magisterium. Quoting a phrase from
Pope Leo XIII, the Council says that the study of the
sacred page should be the soul of theology. The pastoral
work of priests should be nourished by their use of the
Scriptures, especially in preaching and catechetics.
Using an expression of St. Jerome, the Council reminds
both priests and lay people that Ignorance of the
Scriptures is ignorance of Christ. Accordingly, the
Council urges priests, deacons, and catechists to
immerse themselves in the Scriptures by constantly
reading them and meditating on them. The study of the
sacred page should lead naturally to prayer, for, as St.
Ambrose said, we speak to him when we pray; we listen
to him when we read the divine oracles.
Next, the Council says that bishops should instruct the
faithful on how to use the Bible in a Catholic way, and
that they should provide good translations with
adequate notes so the reader can better understand
what the authors are saying, especially the evangelists
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (#25).
Finally, the Council hopes that by reading and studying
the Word of God contained in the Bible, Catholics will
grow in the knowledge and love of God. So, the Holy
Eucharist and the Holy Scriptures are the foundation of
a vigorous and generous spiritual life.
The Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum depends on
Catholic biblical scholarship of the past. It is especially
dependent on the encyclical letters of three popes
which treat the Bible: Leo XIIIs Providentissimus Deus
(1893), Benedict XVs Spiritus Paraclitus (1920, and Pius
XIIs Divino Afflante (1943). Those readers interested in
questions related to the interpretation of the Bible
should consult the important document published by
the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1993 to
commemorate the hundredth anniversary of
Providentissimus Deus. The English title is The
Interpretation of the Bible in the Catholic Church. It can
be found in Origins (Vol. 23, No. 29, January 6, 1994, pp.
497-524). The Daughters of St. Paul also sell it in a
pamphlet form.
These four documents, along with the Dogmatic
Constitution on Revelation, will give the reader a good
overview of Church teaching during the past hundred
years on questions relating to divine Revelation and its
interpretation. These documents are normative for
anyone who calls himself a Catholic whether cleric,
theologian, or lay person.
Acknowledgement
Baker, Kenneth. Vatican II on Divine Revelation. Catholic
Dossier 6 no. 1 (January-February 2000): 17-21.

Reprinted with permission of Catholic Dossier. To

subscribe to Catholic Dossier, call 1-800-651-1531.

The Author
Father Kenneth Baker, S.J., assumed editorship of
Homiletic & Pastoral Review in
April 1971 and remained in this position for almost forty
years. In 1983 he published a three-volume explanation
of the faith called Fundamentals of Catholicism Vol. 1,
Creed and Commandments; Vol. 2, God, Trinity,
Creation, Christ, Mary; and Vol. 3, Grace, the Church,
the Sacraments, Eschatology
Copyright © 2000 Catholic Dossier
St. Thomas Aquinas:
The Existence of God can be proved in five ways.
Argument Analysis of the Five Ways
The First Way: Argument from Motion
1. Our senses prove that some things are in motion.
2. Things move when potential motion becomes actual
motion.
3. Only an actual motion can convert a potential
motion into an actual motion.
4. Nothing can be at once in both actuality and
potentiality in the same respect (i.e., if
1. both actual and potential, it is actual in one
respect and potential in another).
5. Therefore, nothing can move itself.
6. Therefore, each thing in motion is moved by
something else.
7. The sequence of motion cannot extend ad
infinitum.
8. Therefore, it is necessary to arrive at a first mover,
put in motion by no other; and this everyone
understands to be God.
The Second Way: Argument from Efficient Causes
1. We perceive a series of efficient causes of things in
the world.
2. Nothing exists prior to itself.
3. Therefore nothing [in the world of things we
perceive] is the efficient cause of itself.
4. If a previous efficient cause does not exist, neither
does the thing that results (the
1. effect).
5. Therefore, if the first thing in a series does not exist,
nothing in the series exists.
6. If the series of efficient causes extends ad infinitum
into the past, for then there would
2. be no things existing now.
7. That is plainly false (i.e., there are things existing
now that came about through
3. efficient causes).
8. Therefore, efficient causes do not extend ad
infinitum into the past.
9. Therefore, it is necessary to admit a first efficient
cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.
The Third Way: Argument from Possibility and
Necessity (Reductio argument)
1. We find in nature things that are possible to be and
not to be, that come into being and go out of being
i.e., contingent beings.
2. Assume that every being is a contingent being.
3. For each contingent being, there is a time it does
not exist.
4. Therefore, it is impossible for these always to exist.
5. Therefore, there could have been a time when no
things existed.
6. Therefore, at that time there would have been
nothing to bring the currently existing contingent
beings into existence.
7. Therefore, nothing would be in existence now.
8. We have reached an absurd result from assuming
that every being is a contingent being.
9. Therefore, not every being is a contingent being.
10. Therefore, some being exists of its own necessity,
and does not receive its existence from another
being, but rather causes them. This all men speak of
as God.
The Fourth Way: Argument from Gradation of Being
1. There is a gradation to be found in things: some are
better or worse than others.
2. Predications of degree require reference to the
“uttermost” case (e.g., a thing is said to be hotter
according as it more nearly resembles that which is
hottest).
3. The maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that
genus.
4. Therefore, there must also be something which is to
all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and
every other perfection; and this we call God.
The Fifth Way: Argument from Design
1. We see that natural bodies work toward some goal,
and do not do so by chance.
2. Most natural things lack knowledge.
3. But as an arrow reaches its target because it is
directed by an archer, what lacks intelligence
achieves goals by being directed by something
intelligence.
4. Therefore, some intelligent being exists by whom all
natural things are directed to their end; and this
being we call God.

SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION
Protestants claim the Bible is the only rule of faith,
meaning that it contains all of the material one needs
for theology and that this material is sufficiently clear
that one does not need apostolic tradition or the
Church’s magisterium (teaching authority) to help one
understand it. In the Protestant view, the whole of
Christian truth is found within the Bible’s pages.
Anything extraneous to the Bible is simply non
authoritative, unnecessary, or wrong.
Catholics, on the other hand, recognize that the true
“rule of faith”—as expressed in the Bible itself—is
Scripture plus apostolic tradition, as manifested in the
living teaching authority of the Catholic Church, to
which were entrusted the oral teachings of Jesus and
the apostles, along with the authority to interpret
Scripture correctly.
In the Second Vatican Council’s document on divine
revelation, Dei Verbum (Latin: “The Word of God”), the
relationship between Tradition and Scripture is
explained: “Hence there exists a close connection and
communication between sacred Tradition and sacred
Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same
divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity
and tend toward the same end. For sacred Scripture is
the word of God in as much as it is consigned to writing
under the inspiration of the divine Spirit. To the
successors of the apostles, sacred Tradition hands on in
its full purity God’s word, which was entrusted to the
apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit.
“Thus, by the light of the Spirit of truth, these
successors can in their preaching preserve this word of
God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely
known. Consequently, it is not from sacred Scripture
alone that the Church draws her certainty about
everything which has been revealed. Therefore, both
sacred Tradition and sacred Scripture are to be
accepted and venerated with the same devotion and
reverence.”
But Evangelical and Fundamentalist Protestants, who
place their confidence in Martin Luther’s theory of sola
scriptura (Latin: “Scripture alone”), will usually argue for
their position by citing a couple of key verses. The first is
this: “These are written that you may believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may
have life in his name” (John 20:31). The other is this:
“All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for
teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in
righteousness; so that the man of God may be
equipped, prepared for every good work” (2 Timothy
3:16–17). According to these Protestants, these verses
demonstrate the reality of sola scriptura (the “Bible
only” theory).
Not so, reply to Catholics. First, the verse from John
refers to the things written in that book (read it with
John 20:30, the verse immediately before it to see the
context of the statement in question). If this verse
proved anything, it would not prove the theory of sola
scriptura but that the Gospel of John is sufficient.
Second, the verse from John’s Gospel tells us only that
the Bible was composed so we can be helped to believe
Jesus is the Messiah. It does not say the Bible is all we
need for salvation, much less that the Bible is all we
need for theology; nor does it say the Bible is even
necessary to believe in Christ. After all, the earliest
Christians had no New Testament to which they could
appeal; they learned from oral, rather than written,
instruction.
Much the same can be said about 2 Timothy 3:16-17. To
say that all inspired writing “has its uses” is one thing; to
say that only inspired writing need be followed is
something else. Besides, there is a telling argument
against claims of Evangelical and Fundamentalist
Protestants. John Henry Newman explained it in an
1884 essay entitled “Inspiration in its Relation to
Revelation.”
Newman’s argument
He wrote: “It is quite evident that this passage furnishes
no argument whatever that the sacred Scripture,
without Tradition, is the sole rule of faith; for, although
sacred Scripture is profitable for these four ends, still it
is not said to be sufficient. The Apostle [Paul] requires
the aid of Tradition (2 Thess. 2:15). Moreover, the
Apostle here refers to the scriptures which Timothy was
taught in his infancy.
“Now, a good part of the New Testament was not
written in his boyhood: Some of the Catholic epistles
were not written even when Paul wrote this, and none
of the books of the New Testament were then placed
on the canon of the Scripture books. He refers, then, to
the scriptures of the Old Testament, and, if the
argument from this passage proved anything, it would
prove too much, viz., that the scriptures of the New
Testament were not necessary for a rule of faith.”

Furthermore, Protestants typically read 2 Timothy 3:16
17 out of context. When read in the context of the
surrounding passages, one discovers that Paul’s
reference to Scripture is only part of his exhortation
that Timothy takes as his guide Tradition and Scripture.
The two verses immediately before it states: “But as for
you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly
believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how
from childhood you have been acquainted with the
sacred writings which are able to instruct you for
salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:14– 15).
Paul tells Timothy to continue in what he has learned
for two reasons: first, because he knows from whom he
has learned it—Paul himself—and second, because he
has been educated in the scriptures. The first of these is
a direct appeal to apostolic tradition, the oral teaching
which the apostle Paul had given Timothy. So,
Protestants must take 2 Timothy 3:16-17 out of context
to arrive at the theory of sola scriptura. But when the
passage is read in context, it becomes clear that it is
teaching the importance of apostolic tradition!
The Bible denies that it is sufficient as the complete rule
of faith. Paul says
that much Christian teaching is to be found in the
tradition which is handed
down by word of mouth (2 Tim. 2:2). He instructs us to
“stand firm and hold
to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by
word of mouth or
by letter” (2 Thess. 2:15).
This oral teaching was accepted by Christians, just as
they accepted the written teaching that came to them
later. Jesus told his disciples: “He who hears you hears
me, and he who rejects you rejects me” (Luke 10:16).
The Church, in the persons of the apostles, was given
the authority to teach by Christ; the Church would be
his representative. He commissioned them, saying, “Go
therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matt.
28:19).
And how was this to be done? By preaching, by oral
instruction: “So faith comes from what is heard, and
what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ” (Rom.
10:17). The Church would always be the living teacher.
It is a mistake to limit “Christ’s word” to the written
word only or to suggest that all his teachings were
reduced to writing. The Bible nowhere supports either
notion.
What is Tradition?
In this discussion it is important to keep in mind what
the Catholic Church means by tradition. The term does
not refer to legends or mythological accounts, nor does
it encompass transitory customs or practices which may
change, as circumstances warrant, such as styles of
priestly dress, particular forms of devotion to saints, or
even liturgical rubrics. Sacred or apostolic tradition
consists of the teachings that the apostles passed on
orally through their preaching. These teachings largely
(perhaps entirely) overlap with those contained in
Scripture, but the mode of their transmission is
different.
Paul illustrated what tradition is: “For I delivered to you
as of first importance what I also received, that Christ
died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. . ..
Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you
believed” (1 Cor. 15:3,11). The apostle praised those
who followed Tradition: “I commend you because you
remember me in everything and maintain the traditions
even as I have delivered them to you” (1 Cor. 11:2).
The first Christians “devoted themselves to the apostles’
teaching” (Acts 2:42) long before there was a New
Testament. From the very beginning, the fullness of
Christian teaching was found in the Church as the living
embodiment of Christ, not in a book. The teaching
Church, with its oral, apostolic tradition, was
authoritative. Paul himself gives a quotation from Jesus
that was handed down orally to him: “It is more blessed
to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).
Fundamentalists say Jesus condemned tradition. They
note that Jesus said, “And why do you transgress the
commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?”
(Matt. 15:3). Paul warned, “See to it that no one makes
a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit,
according to human tradition, according to the
elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to
Christ” (Col. 2:8). But these verses merely condemn
erroneous human traditions, not truths which were
handed down orally and entrusted to the Church by the
apostles. These latter truths are part of what is known
as apostolic tradition, which is to be distinguished from
human traditions or customs.
“Commandments of men”
Consider Matthew 15:6–9, which Fundamentalists and
Evangelicals often
use to defend their position: “So by these traditions of
yours you have made
God’s laws ineffectual. You hypocrites, it was a true
prophecy that Isaiah
made of you when he said, ‘This people do me honor
with its lips, but its
heart is far from me. Their worship is in vain, for the
doctrines they teach
are the commandments of men.’” Look closely at what
Jesus said.

He was not condemning all traditions. He condemned

only those that made God’s word void. In this case, it
was a matter of the Pharisees feigning the dedication of
their goods to the Temple so they could avoid using
them to support their aged parents. By doing this, they
dodged the commandment to “Honor your father and
your mother” (Ex. 20:12).

Elsewhere, Jesus instructed his followers to abide by

traditions that are not contrary to God’s
commandments. “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on
Moses’ seat; so, practice and observe whatever they tell
you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not
practice” (Matt. 23:2–3).

What Fundamentalists and Evangelicals often do,

unfortunately, is see the word “tradition” in Matthew
15:3 or Colossians 2:8 or elsewhere and conclude that
anything termed a “tradition” is to be rejected. They
forget
that the term is used in a different sense, as in 1
Corinthians 11:2 and 2
Thessalonians 2:15, to describe what should be
believed. Jesus did not
condemn all traditions; he condemned only erroneous
traditions, whether
doctrines or practices, that undermined Christian truths.
The rest, as the
apostles taught, were to be obeyed.

The indefectible Church

How can we know which traditions are apostolic and
which are merely human? The answer is the same as
how we know which scriptures are apostolic and which
are merely human—by listening to the magisterium or
teaching authority of Christ’s Church. Without the
Catholic Church’s teaching authority, we would not
know with certainty which purported books of Scripture
are authentic. If the Church revealed to us the canon of
Scripture, it could also reveal to us the “canon of
Tradition” by establishing which traditions have been
passed down from the apostles. After all, the New
Testament itself declares the Church to be “the pillar
and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15).

The Magisterium of the Catholic Church
Defined as "the Church's divinely appointed authority to
teach the truths of religion". In other words, Our Lord
gave His Church the authority to teach the faithful
about what is expected of them, and that is what the
Church has done consistently from the start.
The Magisterium of Catholic Church teaches the faithful
in two ways.
1) Solemn Magisterium: is Church teaching which is
used only rarely by formal and authentic definitions
of councils or Popes. This includes dogmatic
definitions by councils or Pope’s teaching "ex
cathedra"
2) Ordinary Magisterium: this second form of Church
teaching is continually exercised by the Church
especially in her universal practices connected with
faith and morals, in the unanimous consent of the
Fathers and theologians, in the decisions of the
Roman Congregations concerning faith and morals,
in the common sense of the Faithful, and various
historical documents, in which the faith is declared.
(Definitions from A Catholic Dictionary, 1951) See below
for Scripture and Church teaching on the Magisterium
of the Church.
References In Scripture to the Magisterium of the
Church:
 "And the apostles and ancients assembled to
consider of this matter. And when there had
been much disputing, Peter, Rising up, said to
them: Men, brethren, you know, that in former
days God made choice among us, that by my
mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the
gospel, and believe. And God, Chenoweth the
hearts, gave testimony, giving unto them the
Holy Ghost, as well as to us" Acts 15:6-8.
 And later in the same chapter: "For it hath
seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us..."
Acts 15:28
 "Go ye into the whole world and preach the
gospel to every creature. He that believeth and
is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth
not shall be condemned." Matthew 16:15
Magisterium of the Church:
 "All those things are to be believed by divine and
Catholic faith which are contained in the written
Word of God or in Tradition, and which are
proposed by the Church, either in solemn judgment
or in its ordinary and universal teaching office, as
divinely revealed truths which must be believed."
(First Vatican Council, 1870)
 "For this reason the Fathers of the Vatican Council
laid down nothing new, but followed divine
revelation and the acknowledged and invariable
teaching of the Church as to the very nature of
faith, when they decreed as follows: "All those
things are to be believed by divine and Catholic faith
which are contained in the written or unwritten
word of God, and which are proposed by the Church
as divinely revealed, either by a solemn definition or
in the exercise of its ordinary and universal
Magisterium" (Sess. iii., cap. 3)" Encyclical On the
Unity of the Church by Pope Leo XIII, 1896
 "But for Catholics nothing will remove the authority
of the second Council of Nicea, where it condemns
those "who dare, after the impious fashion of
heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to
invent novelties of some kind...or endeavor by
malice or craft to overthrow any one of the
legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church"; nor
that of the declaration of the fourth Council of
Constantinople: "We therefore profess to preserve
and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy
Catholic and Apostolic Church, by the Holy and most
illustrious Apostles, by the orthodox Councils, both
general and local, and by every one of those divine
interpreters, the Fathers and Doctors of the
Church." Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV,
and Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession
of faith of the following declaration: "I most firmly
admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical
traditions and other observances and constitutions
of the Church." Encyclical On the Doctrine of the
Modernists by Pope Pius X, 1907
 "But as the Church was to last to the end of time,
something more was required besides the bestowal
 of the Sacred Scriptures. It was obviously necessary
that the Divine Founder should take every
precaution, lest the treasure of heavenlygiven
truths, possessed by the Church, should ever be
destroyed, which would assuredly have happened,
had He left those doctrines to each one's private
judgment. It stands to reason, therefore, that a
living, perpetual "magisterium" was necessary in
the Church from the beginning, which, by the
command of Christ himself, should besides teaching
other wholesome doctrines, give an authoritative
explanation of Holy Writ, and which being directed
and safeguarded by Christ himself, could by no
means commit itself to erroneous teaching"
Encyclical On the Church in Scotland by Pope Leo
XIII, 1898
 "For these writings attack and pervert the true
power of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff and the
bishops, who are the successors of blessed Peter
and the apostles; they transfer it instead to the
people, or, as they say, to the community. They
obstinately reject and oppose the infallible
magisterium both of the Roman Pontiff and of the
whole Church in teaching matters" Encyclical by
Pope Pius IX in 1873, On the Church of Italy,
Germany, and Switzerland, under heading of
'Further Heresies'
 "while for subsequent ages down to our own day it
continues to be theoretically true that the Church
may, by the exercise of this ordinary teaching
authority arrive at a final and infallible decision
regarding doctrinal questions..." 1917 Catholic
Encyclopedia, Infallibility
 "Even the ordinarium magisterium is not
independent of the pope. In other words, it is only
bishops who are in corporate union with the pope,
the Divinely constituted head and center of Christ's
mystical body, the one true Church, who have any
claim to share in the charisma by which the
infallibility of their morally unanimous teaching is
divinely guaranteed according to the terms of
Christ's promises" 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia,
Infallibility
 "Thus, from the universal agreement of the
Church's ordinary teaching authority we have a
certain and firm proof, demonstrating that the
Blessed Virgin Mary's bodily Assumption into
heaven- which surely no faculty of the human mind
could know by its own natural powers, as far as the
heavenly glorification of the virginal body of the
loving Mother of God is concerned-is a truth that
has been revealed by God and consequently
something that must be firmly and faithfully
believed by all children of the Church. For, as the
Vatican Council asserts, "all those things are to be
believed by divine and Catholic faith which are
contained in the written Word of God or in
Tradition, and which are proposed by the Church,
either in solemn judgment or in its ordinary and
universal teaching office, as divinely revealed truths
which must be believed." Encyclical On Defining the
Dogma of the Assumption by Pope Pius XII,
November 1, 1950
 "It need only be added here that not everything in a
conciliar or papal pronouncement, in which some
doctrine is defined, is to be treated as definitive and
infallible. For example, in the lengthy Bull of Pius IX
defining the Immaculate Conception the strictly
definitive and infallible portion is comprised in a
sentence or two; and the same is true in many cases
in regard to conciliar decisions." 1917 Catholic
Encyclopedia, Infallibility
Examples of the Solemn Magisterium of the Church
(also called "ex cathedra teaching"):
 The decisions made during the General Councils of
the Catholic Church.
 Papal encyclicals on "The Immaculate Conception"
(1849) and "Defining the Dogma of the Assumption"
(1950)
Examples of the Ordinary Magisterium of the Church:
 Universal teaching of the Church such as other
papal encyclicals (when not written in "ex cathedra"
form), universal references such as the Summa
Theologica, and writings of Saints that are
continually utilized by the Church and passed from
Pope to Pope without objection.
Summary
Whatever has been taught by the Catholic Church since
the time of Christ, either through "solemn"
pronouncements of Councils or Popes, or by unanimous
"ordinary" everyday teaching, MUST be believed by all
Catholics, per what Our Lord said in Scripture and what
the first Vatican Council confirmed. Refusing to do so is
called "heresy" and places one outside of the Catholic
Church.

DIVINE INSPIRATION OF SACRED SCRIPTURE
Catechesis by Pope John Paul II on God the Father
General Audience, Wednesday, 1 May 1985 - in Italian &
Spanish
"1. Today we repeat once again those beautiful words
of the conciliar Constitution Dei Verbum: "And thus
God, who spoke of old, uninterruptedly converses with
the bride of his beloved Son [which is the Church]; and
the Holy Spirit, through whom the living voice of the
Gospel resounds in the Church, and through her, in the
world, leads unto all truth those who believe and makes
the word of Christ dwell abundantly in them (cf. Col
3:16)" (DV 8).
Let us take up again what it means "to believe." To
believe in a Christian way means precisely to be led by
the Spirit to the entire truth of divine revelation. It
means to be a community of the faithful open to the
word of the Gospel of Christ. Both are possible in every
generation. The living transmission of divine revelation,
contained in Tradition and Sacred Scripture, remains
integral in the Church, thanks to the special service of
the Magisterium, in harmony with the supernatural
sense of the faith of the People of God.
2. To complete this concept of the bond between our
Catholic "creed" and its source, the doctrine of the
divine inspiration of Sacred Scripture and the authentic
interpretation of Scripture is also important. In
presenting this doctrine we will follow above all (as in
the previous catecheses) the Constitution Dei Verbum.
The Council said: "Holy Mother Church, relying on the
belief of the apostles, holds that the books of both the
Old and New Testaments in their entirety, with all their
parts, are sacred and canonical because, having been
written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn
20:31; 2 Tim 3:16; 2 Pet 1:19-21; 3:15-16), they have
God as their author and have been handed on as such
to the Church herself" (DV 11).
God - as the invisible and transcendent author - "chose
men and while employed by him they made use of their
powers and abilities, so that...they, as true authors,
consigned to writing everything and only those things
which he wanted" (DV 11). For this purpose, the Holy
Spirit acted in them and through them (cf. DV 11).
3. Granted this origin, it must be held "that the books of
Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching firmly,
faithfully, and without error that truth which God
wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our
salvation" (DV 11). St. Paul's words in his Letter to
Timothy confirm this: "All Scripture is inspired of God
and is useful for teaching, for reproof, correction, and
training in holiness so that the man of God may be fully
competent and equipped for every good work" (2 Tim
3:16-17).
In accordance with the teaching of St. John Chrysostom,
the Constitution on Divine Revelation expresses
admiration for that special "condescension, "a stooping
down" as it were by divine Wisdom. "The words of God,
expressed in human language, have been made like
human discourse, just as the Word of the eternal
Father, when he took to himself the flesh of human
weakness, was in every way made like men" (DV 13).
4. Some norms concerning the interpretation of Sacred
Scripture logically spring from the truth of its divine
inspiration. The Constitution Dei Verbum lists them
briefly: A primary principle is that "since God speaks in
Sacred Scripture through men in human fashion, the
interpreter of Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly
what God wanted to communicate to us, should
carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers
really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by
means of their words" (DV 12).
For this end - this is the second point - it is necessary to
take into consideration, among other things, the
"literary genres." "For truth is set forth and expressed
differently in texts which are variously historical,
prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse" (DV
12). The meaning of what the author expresses depends
precisely on these literary genres, which must therefore
be considered against the background of all the
circumstances of a given era and a specific culture.
Here, then, is the third principle for a correct
interpretation of Sacred Scripture: "For the correct
understanding of what the sacred author wanted to
assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and
characteristic styles of perceiving, speaking, and
narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred
writer, and to the pattern men normally employed at
that period in their everyday dealings with one another"
(DV 12).
also for theologians and exegetes at the right level and
in the proper degree. In this field the merciful
providence of God is revealed for everyone. God has
willed to grant us not only the gift of his self-revelation,
but also the guarantee of its faithful preservation,
interpretation and explanation, entrusting it to the
hands of the Church."

5. These sufficiently detailed indications, given for

interpretation of an historical-literary character,
demand a deepened relationship with the premises of
the doctrine on the divine inspiration of Sacred
Scripture. It must be "read and interpreted according to
the same Spirit by whom it was written" (DV 12).
Therefore, "no less serious attention must be given to
the content and unity of the whole of Scripture...the
living tradition of the whole Church must be taken into
account along with the harmony which exists between
elements of the faith" (DV 12). By the "harmony which
exists between elements of the faith," we mean the
consistency of the individual truths of faith among
themselves and with the total plan of revelation and the
fullness of the divine economy contained in it.

6. The task of exegetes, that is, researchers who study

Sacred Scripture with appropriate methods, is to
contribute, in keeping with the above-mentioned
principles, "to a better understanding and explanation
of the meaning of Sacred Scripture, so that through
preparatory study the judgment of the Church may
mature" (DV 12).

Granted that the Church has "the divine commission

and ministry of guarding and interpreting the word of
God," whatever concerns "the way of interpreting
Scripture is subject finally to the judgment of the
Church" (DV 12). This norm is important and decisive for
specifying the reciprocal relationship between exegesis
(and theology) and the Magisterium of the Church. It is
a norm that remains closely related to what we have
previously said about the transmission of divine
revelation.

We must stress once again that the Magisterium makes

use of the work of theologians and exegetes and at the
same time watches over the results of their studies. The
Magisterium is called to safeguard the whole truth
contained in divine revelation.

7. To believe in a Christian way means to adhere to this

truth by taking advantage of the guarantee of truth
which comes to the Church through its institution by
Christ himself. This holds true for all the faithful, and

THE SENSES OF SCRIPTURE
by Pauline A. Viviano, PhD
The Church has a rich tradition of interpreting Sacred
Scripture. That tradition had begun already in the New
Testament, as the Old Testament was interpreted in
relationship to Christ, and it was further developed by
the early Church Fathers and systematized in the
medieval period. Though modern and contemporary
biblical scholarship both have adopted “new means and
new aids to exegesis”1 as encouraged by Pope Pius XII,
the foundation laid by the early Church Fathers and the
medieval Church continues to support subsequent
inquiries into the meaning of the biblical text. The early
Church Fathers were not bound to one meaning of the
text but rather allowed the biblical text to speak its
message in various ways. These various ways
correspond to the levels of meaning in a text; these
levels of meaning we call “the senses of Scripture.”
There are two basic senses of Scripture: the literal sense
and the spiritual sense. The literal sense refers to the
sense of the words themselves; it is “that which has
been expressed directly by the inspired human
authors.”2 It has been variously described as the verbal
or grammatical sense, the plain sense, the sense the
human author intended, the sense the divine author
intended, the historical sense, and even the obvious
sense. Underlying these various descriptions is the
notion that “the literal sense is the meaning conveyed
by the words of Scripture.”3 The literal sense is
discovered by careful and attentive study of the biblical
text using all interpretive tools available, such as
grammatical aids, archaeological evidence, historical
and literary analyses, sociological and anthropological
studies, and whatever else can be called upon to
expand one’s knowledge of the historical and literary
context of the text and thereby gain a better
understanding of the literal sense of the biblical text.
The importance of the literal sense was long ago
underscored by St. Thomas Aquinas in his recognition
that “all the senses are founded on one—the literal
from which alone can any argument be drawn, and not
from those intended in allegory.”4 This importance was
reiterated in Pope Pius XII’s exhortation to Catholic
biblical scholars: “let the Catholic exegete undertake the
task, of all those imposed on him the greatest, that
namely of discovering and expounding the genuine
meaning of the Sacred Books. In the performance of this
task let the interpreters bear in mind that their
foremost and greatest endeavor should be to discern
and define clearly that sense of the biblical words which
is called literal.”5
The spiritual sense refers to when what is signified by
the words of a text, the literal sense, also has a further
signification.6 As it developed within Christianity, the
spiritual sense pertained to “the meaning expressed by
the biblical texts when read under the influence of the
Holy Spirit, in the context of the paschal mystery of
Christ and of the new life which flows from it.”7
Spiritual interpretation of the Old Testament was
especially prominent for the Church Fathers, for the Old
Testament was believed to contain God’s preparation
for his Son. The early Church Fathers used many terms
to refer to the spiritual meaning of the text, such as
allegorical sense, mystery, or mystical sense, and
theoria.8 The lines between these various terms are
blurred, and their meanings often overlap. Indeed, at
times these terms were used interchangeably by the
early Church Fathers.
By the medieval period, three distinct spiritual senses
emerged: the allegorical sense (which included
typology), the tropological or moral sense, and the
anagogic or future sense.
1. Pope Pius XII, Divino Affl ante Spiritu (1943), no. 33,
trans. National Catholic Welfare Conference, in The
Bible Documents: A Parish Resource (Chicago:
Liturgy Training Publications, 2001), 22.
2. Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of
the Bible in the Church (1993), no. 131, in The Bible
Documents, 162.
3. Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd ed.)
(Washington, DC: Libreria Editrice Vaticana–United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2000), no.
116.
4. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans.
English Dominicans (New York: Christian Classics,
1981), I, 1, 10, ad. 1.
5. Pope Pius XII, Divino Afflante Spiritu, no. 23.
6. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, 1, 10.
7. Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of
the Bible in the Church, no. 135.
8. From Raymond Brown, The Sensus Plenior of Sacred
Scripture (Baltimore, MD: St. Mary’s University,
1955), 46: Sometimes theoria is used in the same
sense as allegory, but in the Antiochene school it
specifically refers to the “perception of the future
which a prophet enjoys through the medium of the
present circumstances which he is describing.”
The allegorical sense refers to the meaning that is
hidden beneath the surface of the text. The search for
the allegorical meaning of texts finds its origin in the
Greek world, especially in Platonic philosophy as it was
understood in the Hellenistic period. Allegorical
interpretation was employed to make sense of the
Greek myths in which the gods often appeared crude
and their behavior immoral. Underlying the allegorical
method is the notion that the writers of an earlier age
composed their works in a veiled language. They wrote
one thing but intended another. In order to hold on to
the stories of old, and yet to allow these stories to
speak to a new age, it is necessary to find a meaning
beyond what the written word said. In order to uncover
the true meaning of those ancient myths, it is necessary
to treat the written word as a symbol for a deeper
reality; it is necessary to find a deeper meaning below
the surface or literal meaning of the text. By means of
allegorical interpretation, truth is unveiled; where there
was mystery now stands revelation.
Like the ancient Greek myths, many passages in the
Jewish Scriptures are obscure or seemingly inconsistent,
or the content of the passage is seen as unacceptable
when judged by the standards of a later age. Use of the
allegorical method to interpret the Bible in the early
Church could explain away its inconsistencies, the
questionable behavior of its characters, and its
crudeness. The greatest proponent of allegorical
method of interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures was
Philo of Alexandria. In his search for the deeper
significance of the text, Philo identified biblical
characters with abstract virtues or with the soul in its
journey through life. Names, numbers, measurements,
and seemingly mundane details were explored for their
hidden meaning and given cosmic or mystical
significance.9 The allegorical method of Philo of
Alexandria was influential in the development of
Christian allegorical interpretation.
Allegorical interpretation is already found in the New
Testament. For example, Paul in the Epistle to the
Galatians says,
“For it is written that Abraham had two sons,
one by the slave woman and the other by a
freeborn woman. The son of the slave woman
was born naturally, the son of the freeborn
through a promise. Now this is an allegory.
These women are two covenants. One was from
Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; this is
Hagar. . .. But the Jerusalem above is freeborn,
and she is our mother. (Gal 4:22-26)
The allegorical method of interpretation dominated in
the early Church from the time of Clement of Alexandria
(150 to 211/215 CE) through the fourth century. Origen,
living in the 3rd century CE, is perhaps the greatest
representative of this kind of interpretation.
Though today scholars make a distinction between
allegorical and typological interpretation, such a
distinction was not made in the early Church. The early
Church Fathers spoke of “types,” but they did not
distinguish between allegory and typology as scholars
have recently begun to do. What is distinctive to
typology is the notion that what preceded Christ was
but a shadow of what was to come. Persons and events
of the Old Testament are understood to be “types” of
persons or events in the New Testament, which are
then “antitypes.” The Old Testament, interpreted
typologically, is said to anticipate or to foreshadow
events to come. The crossing of the Red Sea is seen as a
type of Baptism; Isaac carrying the wood for his sacrifice
in Genesis 22 is seen as a type of Jesus’ carrying his
cross to Calvary. Some representatives of typological
interpretation are Diodorus of Tarsus, St. John
Chrysostom, and Theodore of Mopsuestia. Typology is
found in the exegetical work of St. Augustine and St.
Jerome alongside allegorical interpretation.
Allegorical interpretation gave the early exegetes a way
to find meaning in the Bible, including its obscure and
unseemly passages; but because of this method’s focus
on the deeper spiritual meaning of a text, the literal
sense became viewed as insignificant. Typological
interpretation, by contrast, maintained a greater
respect for the literal sense because this method of
interpretation is more firmly grounded in the literal
sense of the text. Both typology and allegory, however,
went beyond the literal sense of the text in the early
Church. For typologists the written word pointed
beyond itself; for allegorists the written word stood for
something else.
The other two spiritual senses, the tropological sense
and the anagogic sense, are defined in terms of their
focus. The tropological sense is concerned with the
moral lessons that can be drawn from the biblical text. If
events in Israel’s past “were written down to instruct
us” (1 Cor 10:11), then we can learn how we ought to
live by paying careful attention to the history of Israel,
the words of the prophets, and the exhortations found
in Israel’s wisdom traditions—indeed, to the entire
Bible. The anagogic sense represents a shift in focus to
the future, specifically to the end times or last things. It
looks to the goal of our journey through life as we are
“led up”10 to our heavenly home.
9. James L. Kugel, Early Biblical Interpretation
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986), 82.
The fourfold senses of Scripture—the literal, allegorical,
moral (tropological), and anagogic senses—were first
proposed by John Cassian (ca. 360-435). By way of
example,
Cassian wrote, “The one Jerusalem can be understood
in
four different ways, in the historical sense as the city of
the
Jews, in allegory as the Church of Christ, in anagoge as
the
heavenly city of God ‘which is the mother of us all’ (Gal
4:26), in the tropological sense as the human soul.”11
St.
Augustine set forth a similar fourfold division in De
Genesi
ad litteram: “In all the sacred books, we should consider
eternal truths that are taught, the facts that are
narrated,
the future events that are predicted, and the precepts
or
counsels that are given” (1.1).12
The exegetes of the medieval period seem to have
taken these statements as programmatic for
interpretation. Though some spoke of as many as seven
senses of Scripture, it became commonplace to refer to
the fourfold senses of Scripture. A simple poem
attributed to Augustine of Dacia captures the medieval
commitment to the four senses of Scripture: “The letter
teaches events; allegory what you should believe;
morality teaches what you should do, analogy what
mark you should be aiming for.”13 In the medieval
period there were some, such as Hugh of St. Victor and
his followers, who leaned toward a more literal
interpretation; others, such as Bernard of Clairvaux,
leaned toward a more spiritual interpretation. More
often, though, these various senses of Scripture were
set side by side; and all of them were seen as viable,
even if very different, ways in which to understand the
biblical text.
The Reformation brought with it a different interpretive
focus, as Luther took Paul’s statement that “we have
been justified by faith” (Rom 5:1) as the key to
understanding all of Scripture. Luther and subsequent
reformers moved away from allegorical interpretation,
and the literal interpretation of Scripture began to
receive more emphasis. Within Catholicism there was
little change from the interpretive stance taken in the
medieval period with its fourfold senses of Scripture.
Moving into the Age of Enlightenment, reason was
enthroned as the ultimate criterion of knowledge, and
interpretive methods began to change. Authority and
tradition were called into question, and scientific
method began to dominate all fields of inquiry. The
explosion of knowledge that accompanied the
emergence of science, coupled with archaeological
discoveries, raised critical questions about the factual
and scientific accuracy of the Bible.
The historical-critical method that emerged in the
eighteenth century has dominated the field of biblical
interpretation since then, and it continues to influence
contemporary biblical interpretation. The historical
critical method is not one method; it employs several
methods in an attempt to interpret the Bible from
within its historical and literary context and in a search
for the meaning intended by the authors. The method
attends to the history of the text and its formation from
earlier oral and written sources; it discusses its forms
and its redaction. It enlists the aid of many disciplines,
such as linguistics, archaeology, sociology,
anthropology, literary theory, and comparative
religions, to try to determine the meaning of a passage
in its historical and literary context. Those using this
method have challenged many presuppositions about
the historical reliability of the biblical text and the
formulation of doctrines that are biblically based. As
historical-critical method moved into the academy and
began to dominate in Protestant seminaries,
fundamentalism arose to insist upon the inerrancy of
Scripture in every area of knowledge and to hold on to
the fundamentals of Christian faith as they had been
previously defined.

In Catholic circles in the early part of the twentieth
century, biblical scholars began to discuss the fuller
sense (sensus plenior) of Scripture. “The fuller sense is
defined as a deeper meaning of the text, intended by
God but not clearly expressed by the human author.”14
This fuller sense is to be found when a later biblical
author confers on an earlier text a new meaning, such
as Matthew’s use of Isaiah 7:14 (Mt 1:23) to refer to the
virginal conception of Jesus; or when a meaning is given
to a biblical text by later doctrine or conciliar definition,
such as the definition of original sin based in Romans
5:12-21.15 The distinction between the fuller sense and
the spiritual sense is difficult to maintain, but it is said to
stand between the literal sense and the spiritual
sense.16 The fuller sense allows the literal meaning to
stand but maintains that the text acquired
10. The Greek word anagoge means “leading up.”
11. John Cassian, Conferences, trans. Colm Luibheid
(New York: Paulist Press, 1985), 160.
12. St. Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, trans.
John Hammond Taylor (New York: Newman Press,
1982), 19.
13. Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses
of Scripture, trans. Mark Sebanc (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 1998), 1. The Latin text reads: Littera
gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, Moralis quid
agas, quo tendas anagogia (footnote 1, p. 271). It is
found in the Rotulus pugillaris published in 1206 by
Augustine of Dacia.
14. Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of
the Bible in the Church, no. 141.
15. Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of
the Bible in the Church, no. 141.
16. Brown, The Sensus Plenior of Sacred Scripture, 122.
a new meaning after Christ. The fuller sense of a text,
though intended by God, was not seen until the fullness
of Revelation had been realized in Christ.
The discussion of the fuller sense continues, but it has
been largely eclipsed by the adoption of the historical
critical method within Catholic circles in the middle of
the twentieth century. Pope Pius XII published Divino
Afflante Spiritu in 1943, authorizing the use of
contemporary biblical methods of interpretation:
As in our age, indeed new questions and new
difficulties are multiplied, so by God’s favor,
new means and aids to exegesis are also
provided. . .. Let the interpreter then, with all
care and without neglecting any light derived
from recent research, endeavor to determine
the peculiar character and circumstances of the
sacred writer, the age in which he lived, the
sources written or oral to which he had
recourse and the forms of expression he
employed. (no. 33)
The position taken by Pope Pius XII was reaffirmed at
Vatican II in the document Dei Verbum17 and again in
The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church.
From the time of the early Church Fathers through the
medieval period, to the modern world, and now into
the contemporary age, biblical interpretation has grown
and developed, with each successive age applying the
best of the hermeneutical18 principles of its time to
determine the meaning of Sacred Scripture. The
language of “senses of Scripture” is not used by
contemporary biblical scholars; and though those using
historical-critical method have often insisted that a text
has only one meaning, there is a growing recognition
that there are multiple layers of meaning in a text.
Contemporary biblical scholars who employ
historicalcriticalmethods stress what the text meant in
its historical and literary context, but with the Bible we
are dealing with a living text that continues to have
meaning for the faith communities that hold it sacred.
As such, we must attend not only to what the text
meant, but also to what the text means for the believing
community. We continue to move between the literal
and spiritual senses of the text as we struggle to
appropriate what God’s Word has to say to us today.
17. Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum (Dogmatic
Constitution on Divine Revelation), in The Basic
Sixteen Documents: Vatican Council II:
Constitutions, Decrees, Declarations, ed. Austin
Flannery (New York: Costello Publishing Company,
1996). See especially 3:11-12.
18. Hermeneutics is the science or art of interpretation.
It can refer also to the study of the principles that
ground different methods of interpretation.