The understanding of Scripture.
The understanding of Scripture.
§ 386. Seventh: “It is necessary not only to read Scripture but also to understand it. Frequently, however, Scripture is ambiguous and confusing, so that unless someone who cannot make a mistake explains it, one cannot understand it. Therefore Scripture alone is not sufficient.” As examples he brings up “the equality of the divine persons, the Holy Spirit’s proceeding from the Son, original sin, Christ’s descent into hell, etc. These and similar ones (he says) are indeed drawn from the sacred writings, but they are not so easy, so that if one must fight the battle solely with the testimonies of Scripture, he can never end his arguments with the impudent.” Later, he adds: “There are two things in Scripture: the written words and the meaning included therein. All people have the first, but they do not all have the second. We ourselves cannot be sure in many places about the second unless tradition is added.” We respond. (1) The great and irreproachable interpreter of Scripture is the Holy Spirit. The remaining interpreters either set forth their interpretations from the Scriptures or put them into the Scriptures. If the former is the case, the rule of interpretation remains Scripture, which is its own best and certain interpreter. If the latter is true, they are not interpreters but corrupters.
(2) The dogmas that he adduces as examples here can be deduced from Scripture, as Bellarmine admits. Therefore in these Scriptures these dogmas are set forth, and from these Scriptures, the ancients who battled against the heretics regarding these articles drew their arguments. Dionysius of Alexandria, in Athanasius’s book De sentent. Dionysii adversus Arianos: “Yet let my saying be this, that though I have not found the word 
in the sacred writings, yet the thing itself is found there.” ** Tertullian, De resurrect. carnis, last chapter: “It seems that the original documents provided them with certain materials and that these can be refuted by the same writings.” ** We find similar statements in Tertullian (Contra Praxeam), Epiphanius (Haeres. 60), and Ambrose (De fide, c. 5). Bellarmine himself writes in De conciliis, bk. 2, c. 12: “When the Council of Nicaea defined that the Son is 
[“consubstantial”] with the Father,’ it drew its conclusion from the Scriptures.”
(3) To separate the meaning of Scripture from its words and to look for it elsewhere is Schwenckfeldian.
(4) The question here is not about the interpretation of each and every statement of Scripture—namely, whether anyone at all can draw out the genuine meaning of all of them without external aids—but about the articles of faith: whether each and every one of them is found in Scripture.
** Someone, however, may object: One cannot prove from the Scriptures of the Church that the baptism of heretics is valid. We respond. Augustine teaches the contrary (Contra Donatist., bk. 5, c. 23). **
(5) Bellarmine here concedes that one can deduce this from Scripture, “though with difficulty.” The rest of the Papists deny that one can prove this from Scripture. Eck (Loci), Cochlaeus (Contra Bullingerum), and Pistorius (Epitome colloq. Emmerting.) claim that the “consubstantiality of the persons of the Trinity is a tradition of the Church outside of Scripture.” Andrada denies that “one can conclude from Scripture Christ’s descent into hell” (Defens. fid. Trident., bk. 2).