First, the principal [efficient cause], which is God.
First, the principal [efficient cause], which is God.
§ 12. The efficient cause of Scripture is either principal or instrumental. The principal cause is the true God—one in essence, three in persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We prove this: (1) From the material of Scripture. Scripture taken materially is nothing other than God’s Word. But God is also the supreme author of His Word, and in this sense, too, Scripture is called the Word of God. Therefore God also is the supreme author of Scripture. Scripture is nothing other than the divine revelation consigned to sacred writing, for the revealed Word of God and Holy Scripture do not differ really, because holy men of God consigned to the Scriptures those very divine revelations. But now, it is God alone who comes forth from the secret throne of His majesty not only through the work of creation but also through the word expressed to our first parents before the fall, and who revealed the teaching of His essence and will to them, as well as to the patriarchs and prophets after the fall in the Old Testament. For this reason the prophets repeat many times: 
, “The Lord said,” “the statement of Jehovah,” “The word of the Lord happened,” “The mouth of the Lord spoke,” “Hear the word of the Lord,” etc.; and in the New Testament, “He spoke to us through His Son” (Heb. 1:1). He sent His apostles into all the world and said about them, “He who hears you hears Me” (Luke 10:16). Through them and through the evangelists, He wanted the necessary points of divine revelation to be put into writing. Therefore God is the author of Scripture or, what is the same, of the divine revelation consigned to the sacred writings.
The various methods of divine revelation in the Old Testament that God Himself lists should be referred to this: “If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord will appear to him in a vision, or I will speak to him through a dream…. With Moses I speak mouth to mouth, and he sees the Lord clearly and not through enigmas and figures” (Num. 12:6, 8). As he looks back to this, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says that God “many times and in many ways” (Heb. 1:1) spoke to the fathers formerly in the Old Testament. Here we have an indication of the diversity of times and persons and ways by which the divine revelation took place. You see, sometimes God addressed the prophets immediately through Himself, sometimes through angels, and sometimes they heard His voice alone. But there were also times when they saw an outward appearance, and sometimes God appeared in ecstasy to those who were awake and through a dream to those who slept. There were times when He instructed them inwardly, solely through an inbreathing, and other times when He set images of things outwardly before their eyes.
Some people divide these means of divine revelation as follows: Divine revelation in the Old Testament was either ordinary or extraordinary. Ordinary revelation occurred either (1) through the word or (2) by Urim and Thummim. Extraordinary revelation occurred when they were either awake or sleeping. When they were awake, it occurred through bare visions or through a voice; when they were asleep, through dreams. Augustinus Steuchus collects five types of prophecies from Numbers 12: (1) “Through vision,” when we see a thing revealed in a vision. (2) “In a dream,” which happens to those who sleep and which can occur through inner visions. (3) “In enigmas,” when one thing is seen and another intimated as, for example, when Ezekiel ate the scroll. We have the same situation with the revelation made to John. (4) “In a figure or idea,” when we see images of things. (5) The fifth type is the most outstanding. It occurs through divine address, “mouth to mouth.” This mode with angels was common in the case of Moses, God’s faithful servant. Here we should also mention the mode of revelation through Urim and Thummim on the breastplate of the priest (Exod. 28:30). Galatinus (De arcan., bk. 2, c. 12), Fagius (Paraph. Chald., on Exodus 28), Schindlerus (Lex., on the word 
** and Schickartus (in his treatise De jure regio, titled in Hebrew 
, c. 1, theor. 2) ** discuss this in detail from the rabbis. Today we do not think anyone can know precisely what the mode of divine revelation was. (Cf. our treatise On Ceremonial and Forensic Laws [Commonplace XVI], § 9).
§ 13. (2) From the command to write. God not only revealed Himself to humans through His Word, but He also wanted that Word, which was formerly prophesied orally, to be written down later through Moses and the prophets in the Old Testament and through the evangelists and apostles in the New Testament. You see, for 2,454 years—namely, from the creation of the world to the time of Moses—heavenly instruction had been propagated and preserved orally without being written. (The propagation and preservation of heavenly instruction through oral transmission was served by the long life span of the patriarchs, the special revelations made and often repeated, the removal of corrupting influences accomplished by the patriarchs, etc.) Finally, God called Moses and gave him tremendous authority with those many outstanding miracles and especially with that miraculous leading of the children of Israel out of Egypt. Through Moses, God wanted to write down the account of creation and the fall, the spread of the protoevangelium [“first Gospel,” Gen. 3:15], the continually repeated messianic prophecies, and the solemn repetition of the divine Law. To the prophets He gave an express mandate to write down His prophecies, and they were publishing a constantly clearer revelation of His teaching about the Messiah.
Here we should mention the clear commands given to Moses and the prophets in the Old Testament: Exod. 17:14: “And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Write this as a memorial in a book.’ “Exod. 34:27: “Write these words; in accordance with these words, I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” The Lord told Isaiah: “Take a large tablet and write upon it with a man’s pen” (Isa. 8:1); “Write it for them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book, and it will be for the time to come a witness forever” (Isa. 30:8). The Lord says to Jeremiah: “Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you” (Jer. 30:2); “Take a scroll and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel and Judah and all the nations from the day I spoke to you” (Jer. 36:2). The Lord says to Ezekiel: “Son of man, write down for yourself the name of the day on which the king of Babylon has come near to Jerusalem” (Ezek. 24:2); “Make known to them all the ordinances of the temple and all its laws, and write it down in their eyes” (Ezek. 43:11). The Lord tells Habakkuk: “Write the vision; make it plain upon tablets, so that he who reads it may run” (Hab. 2:2). Here we should mention that David’s tongue is called “the pen of a ready scribe” (Ps. 45:1). That “scribe” is none other than the Holy Spirit, the supreme author of Scripture, as Basil teaches in his explanation of this psalm (vol. 1, p. 273). Regarding the evangelists and apostles in the New Testament, we shall show a bit later in the questions that they received from God a mandate to write.
From all this we conclude the following: By whosesoever command and mandate the prophets in the Old Testament and the apostles in the New Testament wrote, he is the supreme author of Scripture. But now, those holy men of God wrote by the command and mandate of God. Therefore God is the supreme author of Scripture.
§ 14. (3) From the internal impulse to write. Just as the holy men of God spoke as they were moved, inspired, and driven by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:21), so also did they write at His impulse and inspiration. The reason is that they were instruments of God not only in the preaching of heavenly doctrine but also in the writing of it. For this reason, in the prefaces to their books they call themselves servants of God and apostles of Christ. We should especially and in particular note, however, that Holy Scripture is called 
[“God-breathed” or “divinely inspired”] (2 Tim. 3:16). Yet it could not hold that august name had it not been written by divine inspiration and were God not its supreme author.
§ 15. (4) From the majestic beginning of the writing. Not only did God reveal His Word to man, order it to be written in the Scriptures, and impel the prophets and apostles to write it by an internal inspiration, but He also initiated, dedicated, and consecrated the writing of His Word with His own act and example when He Himself inscribed the words of the Law on stone tablets. Thus the first origin of Scripture recognizes God Himself as its immediate author. (Exod. 24:12: “The Lord said to Moses: ‘Come up to Me on the mountain … and I shall give you the tables of stone and the Law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.’ “Exod. 32:16: “And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God [Scriptura Dei].”) This is what the rabbinic scholars say, according to Galatinus (De arcan., bk. 7, c. 1) and Reuchlin (Cabalae, bk. 3): “The Law of God was established two thousand years before the creation of the world and was written in fiery letters on a mountain of bright fire.” We understand that this is said somewhat parabolically. As they usually do, they certainly have converted the teaching of their forefathers regarding the eternal and unchanging norm of the Law into worthless fairy tales. Josephus mentions some things that Seth carved and inscribed on two columns before the flood (Antiquit., bk. 1, c. 3). These, however, did not belong to the canon of Scripture and are not extant today. At any rate, in this commonplace we are discussing the origin of canonical Scripture.
Augustine says this about the writings of Enoch:
To be sure, we cannot deny that Enoch of the seventh generation from Adam wrote some divine material because the apostle Jude says this in his canonical epistle. But it is not without reason that these are not in that canon of Scripture which was preserved in the temple of the Hebrew people by the diligence of successive priests. But why was this, except that their antiquity brought them under suspicion, and it was impossible to ascertain whether these were his genuine writings, and they were not brought forward as genuine by the persons who were found to have carefully preserved the canonical books by a successive transmission? For this reason, prudent men judge rightly that we must not believe that which is produced under his name and that contains myths about giants, saying that their fathers were not men. In the same way, heretics publish many things under the names of other prophets and more recent material under the names of the apostles. All these things under the title of apocryphal material have been removed from canonical authority by careful examination. (De civ. Dei, bk. 15, c. 23)
So much for Augustine. Jude, however, does not say that Enoch wrote, only that he prophesied. This could have occurred through oral preaching, and Jude could have had this prophecy of Enoch by a sure tradition, just as Paul had the names of the magicians Jannes and Jambres (2 Tim. 3:8). Some take this to refer to prophecy by events [prophetia realis], rather than to verbal prophecy. Just as corporeal death ruled effectively because of sin in the case of the first six fathers of the Church—Adam, Seth, Enosh, Canaan, Mahaleel, and Jared—but could not exercise its strength and power against Enoch in the seventh generation, so also it will rule all men during the six thousand years when this world will stand. But in the seventh millennium, which will be the beginning of eternal and heavenly life, it will lose its sting and be completely abolished. They believe that Jude was looking at this when he writes that Enoch, in the seventh generation since Adam, prophesied this about the last judgment.
§ 16. Let it be a certain and immovable fact, therefore, that God Himself began the canonical Scripture in His solemn promulgation of the Law. This fact contributes much to the illustration of the authority, dignity, and majesty of Scripture. One cannot confirm with certain and immovable arguments what Origen (bk. 1 on Job) and others claim about the Book of Job: that Moses found it in the home of his father-in-law, Jethro, in the land of Midian and took it with him into the land of Egypt for the children of Israel so they might learn from Job’s example how to endure patiently the oppressions of Pharaoh. (See Sixtus Senensis, Biblioth. sanctae, bk. 1, title “Job,” p. 9.)
From Exod. 24:7, where the Book of the Covenant is mentioned before the publishing of the tables of the Law, the Jews conclude that Moses had written the Book of Genesis before God wrote the tables of the Decalogue. It is obvious, however, that in that Mosaic narrative we have the figure of anticipation, or 
, which is familiar in Holy Scripture. You see, that scroll of the covenant was the “Book of the Testament” that God began with the Israelites on Mount Sinai, that is, the Book of the Law (Heb. 9:19). Moses finally accepted the command to write at the time when God already had written the tables of the Decalogue with His finger (Exod. 34:27).
Numbers 21:14 mentions “the Book of the Wars of the Lord.” Some people think that that book was known to the Jews but is lost today because of an injury of time, without any sacrifice of sacred literature since it was no more than a historical writing. Some of the Hebrews claim that it was the Book of Judges, which describes the many battles the Israelites fought against Amalek. Whatever it is, in the Hebrew it is something future: “
, It will be said in the Book of the Wars of the Lord.” From this it is clear that that book was written after the books of Moses. Joshua 10:13 mentions the “
(“the Book of the Righteous”), which the Septuagint translators rendered as 
[“the Book of the Straight”]. Some take this to refer to the Book of the Law of Moses, which is said to be the “book of the upright and just” because it teaches the Law. As the reason for their conjecture, they submit that one finds in that book promises about the signs that God was going to reveal for the sake of the Israelites. There are some who think that this was actually the Book of Joshua. One thing is clear: That book, whatever it finally was, cannot be a book written before the flood because it treats the history that occurred at the time of Joshua.
One cannot prove, then, with definite and evident arguments that a sacred and canonical book had been written before God’s hand inscribed the writing of the Law on stone tablets. From this it clearly follows that we must refer the origin of canonical Scripture completely to God Himself.
§ 17. Moreover, as in God’s other works so also in the revelation of His Word and the publishing of Scripture we must note the order and distinction of the persons of the Trinity. Regarding the Father, it says in Luke 1:55 that “He spoke to our fathers,” and He spoke “by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old” (Luke 1:70). In Heb. 1:1-2 we read that “in many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days He has spoken in and by a Son … through whom He also created the world.” That is, as the Father created this entire universe through the Son not as through a separate instrument nor as through a lesser minister but as through a substantive and coessential might, so also He spoke through the Son not as through a minister (such were the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles) but as through essential and hypostatic “Wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:30; Prov. 8:12; Matt. 11:[19]).
The Son, the Second Person of the Deity, is called 
[“the Word”], and in Chaldaic Bibles Memrah, because He is that person through whom the Father spoke to our first parents and to the patriarchs and who, in the form that He later assumed in the fullness of time, appeared to the saints in the Old Testament at various times and spoke with them in a familiar fashion. John himself supplies this explanation for the title when, after the name 
[had been] attributed to the Son, he adds that the Son has told us the counsel of God about our salvation (John 1:18). Irenaeus, on the statement “No one has known the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son reveals Him,” says: “‘Reveals’ [revelaverit] not only is said in the future, as if the Word began to reveal the Father when He was born of Mary, but it is [also] put commonly throughout all time. You see, the Son was present at the creation from the beginning and revealed the Father to all whom and when and as the Father wills” (Adv. haeres., bk. 4, c. 14, p. 242). Nazianzen says that the Son, for other reasons, is called “the Word because He proclaims a message” [
] (Orat. 2. de Filio, p. 164). When in the fullness of time He had assumed human nature, He Himself in His own person sowed the seed of the Word for three-plus years, but He put none of this in writing. In Hist. ecclesiast., bk. 1, c. 14, Eusebius relates something about a certain Epistle of Christ to Abgarus, governor of the Edessenes, which was taken from the archives of the city of Edessa. Since it is outside of canonical Scripture, it is uncertain. Baronius tries in many ways to strengthen the trustworthiness of this epistle (Annal., ann. 31, no. 57). However, we set against him the authority of Pope Gelasius, who, along with the Council of Rome, consigns both letters—one from Abgarus to Christ, the other from Christ to Abgarus—to the apocryphal writings ([Gratian, Jus canonicum,] dist. 15, c. Sancta Romana). This judgment of Gelasius is accepted by Melchior Canus, who considers the account of the exchange of letters between Christ and Abgarus a myth. Costerus also follows Gelasius’s judgment and argues in his Enchirid., p. 43, as follows: “Christ did write with His fingers, John 8, but on the ground, and not to us but to the Jews. The letter of Christ to King Abgarus is not in Christ’s own hand nor has the Church ever accepted it as anything of that sort.”
The following statements speak about the Holy Spirit: 2 Sam. 23:2: “The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me; His word was upon my tongue.” (As the Spirit of the Lord spoke through David, so also He wrote through David. For this reason, David compares his tongue to “the pen of a ready scribe,” Ps. 45:1. The “scribe,” as we said earlier, is the Holy Spirit.) Acts 28:25: “The Holy Spirit was correct in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet …” 1 Pet. 1:11: “… the Spirit of Christ predicted in the prophets the sufferings to come.” 2 Pet. 1:21: “Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” When the apostles wrote the synodical letter to the churches and made a noble beginning of writing in the New Testament, they added the clear expression: “It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15:28).