-- D. The clarity of Scripture.
Christian religion, with the humility, humility, etc., which it demands. The tax collectors go before the Pharisees, and in the kingdom of heaven the least is most.
Then there would still be something to be said for this separation, if rationalism were right and revelation consisted of nothing but Vernunftwahrheiten. In that case they could be deduced later by thought from reason itself, although for the time being they are known from revelation. But Revelation has an entirely different content than rational teaching. It is history, it has grace as its content, the person of Christ as its center, the re-creation of mankind as its goal. All this can never be found by thinking or deduced from reason. To know such a revelation, Scripture remains necessary at all times. Even a revelation of God to each man, head by head, could not give what is given to all men by the revelation in Christ through Scripture. The historical character of Revelation, the fact and idea of the Incarnation, and the organic view of the human race demand a Scripture in which God's Revelation is contained for all mankind (cf. p. 299). Therefore it can now be decided, what was left open on p.
143, whether revelation comes to each person individually or is given to all by Scripture. As one sun illuminates the whole earth with her rays, so Christ is the ascendant from on high, appearing to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, and so the same Scripture is the light on all paths and the lamp for all feet. It is the word of God to all mankind. History itself bears powerful witness to this necessity of Scripture. The highly spiritual mysticism has time and again turned into the most vulgar rationalism; and the enthusiastic spiritualism has often ended in the coarsest materialism.
The necessitas S. Scripturae is demonstrated as strongly, in a negative sense, by the tendencies which oppose it as it is, in a positive sense, by the churches which profess it.
D. The clarity of Scripture.
13. Another important property that the Reformation ascribed to Scripture as opposed to Home was the perspicuitas. According to Home, Scripture is obscure, Ps. 119 : 34, 68; Luke 24 : 27 ; Acts 8 :
30; 2 Pet. 3 : 16. Also in those matters which are related to faith and life, it is not so clear that it can lack explanation. After all, it deals with the deepest connections, God, the Trinity, the Incarnation, predestination, etc., and even in the moral precepts, e.g., Mt. 5:34,
40, 10:27; Luke 12:33, 14:33, it is often so unclear that misunderstanding and misinterpretation has occurred at every moment in the Christian Church. To understand the Scriptures rightly it is necessary to have all kinds of knowledge of history, geography, chronology, archaeology, languages, etc., which is unattainable for laymen. The Protestants themselves write numerous commentaries and differ from one another in their exegesis of the most important texts. Therefore an interpretation of Scripture is necessary. This cannot be given by Scripture itself, it cannot be its own interpreter. Plato, Phaedrus p. 274, already said that the letter is mistreated and cannot help itself, and that it needs the help of its father. She is mute and cannot give a decision in a dispute. She is equal to the law, according to which the judge rules, but she is not law and judge at the same time. The learned Jesuit Jakob Gretser made a deep impression at the religious conference in Regensburg
1601 when he spoke thus: Sumus in conspectu sacrae Scripturae et Spiritus Sancti. Pronuntiet sententiam. Et si dicat: tu Gretsere male sentis, cecidisti causa tua, tu Jacobe Heilbrunnere vicisti; tunc ego statim transibo ad vestrum scamnum. Adsit, adsit, adsit et condemnet me! So there must be an interpreter and a judge, who gives a decision according to the Scriptures. If there is no such judge, then interpretation becomes entirely subjective; everyone judges according to his own will and considers his own individual view to be infallible. Every heretic has his letter. Everyone looks for the famous distich of Werenfels, in the Scriptures precisely his dogmata.
Scripture is surrendered to all kinds of arbitrariness. Individualism, enthusiasm, ratio-nalism, endless division is the end. And what is worst, if there is no infallible interpretation, then there is no absolute certainty of faith; the basis on which the hope of the Christian rests is
pious opinion, scientific insight, but not divine, infallible testimony.
And so far removed from it is that anyone can form his own conviction or doctrine from the Holy Scriptures, that even the Protestants, like the Roman Catholics, live by tradition and rely on the authority of the church, synods, fathers, writers, etc.
Such an infallible, divine interpretation of Scripture, however, is given by God in His Church. It is not the dead, uncomprehended, obscure Scriptures left to themselves, but the Church, the living, ever-present, always renewing itself by the Spirit, that is the agent of truth and the infallible interpreter of the Scriptures. For each is the best interpreter of his own word. The true interpreter of Scripture is therefore the Holy Spirit, who is its author. And this has its infallible organ in the Church, or better still, in the Pope. The Church is in possession of the truth through tradition; she is guided by the same
Spirit who gave birth to the Scriptures; she is related to them; she alone can understand their meaning; she is the pillar and anchor of the truth. So has the practice always been. Moses, the priests, Christ, the apostles declared and decided for the church, Ex. 18; Deut. 17:9ff;
2 Chr. 19:9ff; Eccles. 12:12; Hag. 2:2; Mal. 2:7; Mt. 16:19, 18:17, 23:2; Lu. 22:32 ; Jn. 21 :15 v.; Hd. 15:28 ; Gal. 2:2; 1 Cor. 12:8 v.; 2 Pet.
1:19; 1 Jn. 4:1, and popes and councils have followed suit. Therefore, the Trentsch council in sess. 4 it is established that no one is allowed to interpret Holy Scripture contra eum sensum, quem tenuit et tenet sancta mater ecclesiae, cujus est judicare de vero sensu et interpretatione Scripturarum Sanctarum, aut etiam contra unanimem consensum Patrum, and thereby bound exegesis not only negatively, as some Roman Catholics try to interpret it, but very definitely positively as well. No one is allowed to give an exegesis other than the one given by the Church through her presidents, councils or popes. The professio fidei of Pius IV, by Denzinger, Enchir. symb. et defin. n. 864 and the Vaticanum sess. 3 cap. 2 alin. 4 leave no doubt in this regard. But not only through this doctrine of the obscurity of Scripture is scientific exegesis subject to the pope. Even more dependent and bound by it is the layman. Because of its obscurity,
Scripture is not suitable reading for the laity. Without interpretation
it is incomprehensible to the people. That is why the transcription of Scripture into the vernacular and the reading of the Bible by the people has been increasingly restricted by Home since the misuse that was made of it in the Middle Ages and later. Reading the Scriptures is not allowed to the laity except with the permission of the church authorities. The Protestant Bible Societies have been repeatedly condemned by the Popes, and in the Encyclical of 8 Dec.
1864 put on the same level with the socialist and communist societies, Denzinger, Enchir. n. 1566. And although the present pope in his Encyclical recommends the studiis Sacrae Scripturae the study of Scripture, but not to the laity, Vincentius Lerinensis, Commonitorium cap. 3. Bellarminus, de verbo Dei, lib. III. M. Canus,
Loei Theol. II cap. 6 sq. Perrone, Praelect. theol. IX 98 sq. Heinrich, Dogm. I 794 f. Möhler, Symbolik § 38 f. Jansen, Prael. theol. I 771 s.
Herzog2 art. Bibellesen.
14. The doctrine of the perspicuitas S. Scr. has been repeatedly misunderstood and misrepresented by both Protestants and Roman
Catholics. It does not imply that the matters and subjects of Scripture are not mysteries far beyond the understanding of man.
Nor does it claim that Scripture is clear in all its parts, so that no scientific exegesis is necessary. Nor does she mean that the Scriptures, also in their doctrine of salvation, are clear and unambiguous for every human being without distinction. But it only implies that that truth, the knowledge of which is necessary for salvation for everyone, is not presented on every page of Scripture with equal clarity, but is nevertheless presented throughout the whole of Scripture in such a simple and comprehensible form, that a person, whose concern is the salvation of his soul, can easily learn this truth from Scripture by his own reading and research, without the help and guidance of the Church or the priest. The way of salvation, not as regards the matter but as regards the modus tradendi, is clearly laid out for the longing reader. The πως he may not understand, the οτι is nevertheless clear, Zwingli, De claritate et certitudine verbi Dei, Op. ed. Schuier et Schulthess I 65 sq. Luther at Köstlin, Luther's Theol. 2nd Ausg. 1883 II 58 f. Zanchius, de Scr.
Sacra, Op. Omnia VIII 407 sq. Chamier, Panstratia catholica 1626 Loc. 1 Lib. I cap. 13-32. Amesius, Bellarminus Enervatus. Amst.
1630, lib. 1 cap. 4 and 5. Turretinus, Theol. El. loc. 2 qu. 17.
Trigland, Antapologia cap. 3. Synopsis pur. Theol. disp. 5. Gerhard, Loci Theol. loc. 1 cap. 20 sq. Glassius, Philologia Sacra 1691 p. 186 sq.
Thus understood, the perspicuitas is a property, which the Scriptures repeatedly praedicate of themselves. The Torah was given by God to all Israel, and Moses communicates all the words of the Lord to all the people. The law and the word of the Lord is not far from each one of them, but is a light on the path and a lamp for the foot, Deut. 30:
11; Ps. 19: 8, 9, 119: 105, 130; Spr. 6: 23. The prophets address themselves speaking and writing to all the people, Isa. 1 : 10 v., 5 : 3 v., 9 : 1, 40 : 1 v.; Jer. 2 : 4, 4 : 1, 10 : 1 ; Ezek. 3 : 1. Jesus speaks freely to all the multitudes, Mt. 5:1, 13 : 1, 2, 26 : 55, etc., and the apostles write to all the called saints, Bom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:1, etc., and take care of the propagation of their letters themselves, Col. 4:16. The written word is recommended for all to peruse, John 5:39; Acts 17:11 and is written precisely to give faith, patience, hope, consolation, instruction, etc., John 20:31; Rom 15:4; 2 Tim 3:16; 1 Jn 1:1ff. The faithful are themselves mature and able to judge, 1 Cor. 2:15, 10:15; 1
Jn. 2:20; 1 Pet. 2:9. The words of God are entrusted to them, Rom.
3:2. The Fathers of the Church therefore know nothing of the obscurity of Scripture in the later Roman sense. They often speak of the depths and mysteries of Scripture, cf. places with Bellarm. de verbo 'Dei III c. 1. Thus says Chrysostomus, hom. 3 de Lazaro, when he compares the writings of the prophets and apostles with those of the sages: Oi óe άττοστολοι και οί προφηται τουναντίον άπαν έποιηΰαν; βαφη γαρ και όηλα ταρ αυτών κατεϋτησαν άπαΰΐν, άτε κοινοί της οικονμενης όντες διδαΰκαλοι, ίνα έαϋτος και όι έαντου μαν! )ανειν όννηται εκ της άναγνωΰεως μονής τα λεγομενα. And elsewhere, hom. 3 in 2 Thess. he says : παντα <!αφη και εύ&εα τα naga ταις &ειαις γραφαις, παντα τα αναγκαία ΰηλα. Similarly, we read with Augustine, the doctr. chr. 2, 6 : nihil de illis obscuritatibus eruitur, quod non plenissime dictum alibi reperiatur, and ibid. 9 : in iis quae clare in scripturis tradita sunt, inveniuntur omnia, quae
continent fidem moresque vivendi. Known also is the word of Gregory I, in which he compares Scripture to a fluvius planus et altus, in quo et agnus ambulet et elephas natet. Even now Roman theologians must acknowledge that much in Scripture is so clear that not only can the believer understand it, but also the unbeliever, rejecting the clear sense, is inexcusable, Heinrich, Dogm. I 819. The Church Fathers did not think of forbidding the reading of Scripture to the laity. On the contrary, they always insisted on the study of the Holy Scriptures and told of the blessing they themselves received from the reading, Vigouroux, Les livres saints et la critique rationaliste, 3 ed. I 280 s. Gregory I still recommended the reading of Scripture to all the laity, Herzog2 2, 376. The restriction of Bible reading only appeared when since the twelfth century various sects opposed to the church began to refer to Scripture. The opinion then prevailed that the Bible-reading of the laity was the main source of heresy. In self-defense Rome then taught the obscurity of Scripture more and more and bound its reading to the permission of the Church authorities.
15. Indeed, the Reformed churches have no more powerful weapon against Rome than Scripture. It deals the deadliest blows to ecclesiastical tradition and hierarchy. The doctrine of the perspicuitas S. Scr. is one of the most solid bulwarks of the Reformation. It most certainly brings with it its grave dangers.
Protestantism is hopelessly divided by it. Individualism has developed at the expense of the community spirit. The free reading and examination of Scripture has been and is abused by all kinds of parties and directions in the worst way. Yet the disadvantages do not outweigh the advantages. For the denial of the clarity of Scripture implies the submission of the layman to the priest, and of the conscience to the Church. With the perspicuitas S. Scr. falls the freedom of religion and conscience, of the Church and theology. It alone is capable of maintaining the freedom of the Christian man; it is the origin and guarantee of religious and also of political freedoms,
Stahl, Der Protest, als polit. Princip. 2nd Auü. 1853. Saussaye, Het Protest, als politiek beginsel, Rott. 1871. Kuyper, Het Calvinisme,
origine en waarborg onze constitutione vrijheden, Amst. 1874. And a freedom which cannot be obtained and possessed otherwise than with the danger of licentiousness and arbitrariness, is always preferable to a tyranny which suppresses all freedom. When He created man, God Himself chose this path of freedom, which brought with it the danger and indeed the fact of sin, over that of forced submission. And He still follows this royal road to freedom in governing the world and the church. That is His glory, that through freedom He still attains His goal, creates order out of disorder, light out of darkness, the cosmos out of chaos. Both, Rome and the Reformation, agree in this, that the Holy Spirit alone is the true interpreter of the word, Mt. 7:15, 16:17; John 6:44, 10:3; 1 Cor. 2:12,
15, 10:15; Phil. 1:10, 3 : 13; Heb. 5:14; 1 Jn. 4:1. But Rome believes that the Holy Spirit teaches infallibly only through the pope; the Reformation believes that the Holy Spirit dwells in the heart of every believer; every child of God has the anointing of the Holy One. It therefore gives the Scriptures into the hands of all, translates and distributes them, and uses no other language in the Church than the vernacular. Rome boasts of her unity, but this unity seems greater than it is. The division of the Reformation into Lutheran and Reformed has its analogy in the division of the Greek and Latin churches. Under the appearance of external unity, Rome hides an almost equal inner division. The number of unbelievers and indifferent people is no less in Roman countries than in Protestant ones. Rome has not been able to stem the tide of unbelief any more than the churches of the Reformation have. Even before the Reformation unbelief had spread in wide circles, for example in Italy.
The Reformation did not call it forth, but rather thwarted it, and Rome itself aroused to vigilance and combat it. Cartesius, the father of rationalism, was "Roman. ' The German rationalists are weighed down by the French materialists; Rousseau by Voltaire, Strauss by Renan. The Revolution took its deepest root in Roman Catholic countries and bore its most bitter fruits. Furthermore, it remains to be seen whether the number of parties, directions and sects that appear at any given time would not be as great in Rome as it is in Protestantism, if Rome did not have the power and the courage to
suppress every direction by censorship, ban, interdict, if necessary by the sword. It is certainly not thanks to Rome that so many flourishing Christian churches have appeared alongside her.
Whatever the downsides of Protestantism, it proves that religious life here is a force that constantly creates new forms and yet reveals a deeper unity in all its diversity. And in any case, Protestantism with its divisions is preferable to the terrible superstition, in which the people in the Greek and Roman churches are more and more entangled. Marial worship, reliquary worship, statuary worship, saint worship are more and more supplanting the service of the one, true God. Cf. Trede, Das Heidenthum in der römischen Kirche,
Gotha, Perthes, 4 Theile 1889-92.
16. Because of these perspicuitas, Scripture also has the facultas se ipsam interpretandi and is /e supremus judex controversiarum,
Synopsis pur. theol. disp. 5 § 20 sq. Polanus, Synt. Theol. lib. I c. 45.
Turret. Theol. el. Loc. II qu. 20. Amesius, Bellarm. enervatus Lib. I c.
5. Cloppenburg, De Canone Theol. disp. 11-15. Op. II 64 sq. Moor, Comm, in Markii Comp. I 429 sq. Gerhard, Loci Theol. loc. I c. 21,
22. Schmid, Dogm. der ev. luth. K. 6® Aufl. S. 42 f. The Scriptures explain themselves, the duister places are explained by the clear ones, and the fundamental ideas of the Scriptures as a whole serve to elucidate the parts. This was the interpretatio secundum analogiam fidei, which was also advocated by the Reformers. The Reformers, too, did not come to the Scriptures voraussetzungslos. They adopted the teachings of Scripture, the Apostles' Creed, and the decisions of the first councils almost without criticism. They were not revolutionary and did not want to start from scratch, but only protested against the errors that had crept in. The Reformation was not the liberation of the natural man, but of the Christian man. So from the beginning the Reformers had an analogia Hdei, in which they themselves stood and according to which they interpreted the Scriptures. By this analogia fidei they originally meant the sense derived from the clear passages of Scripture itself, which was then laid down in the Confessions, Voetius Disp. V 9 sq. 419 sq. Moor,
Comm. in Marckii Comp. I 436. VI praefatio. Turret, Theol. El. I qu.