Statements of the fathers.
Statements of the fathers.
§ 422. In asserting this perspicuity of Scripture, we have the support of the devout ancients.
Justin, Dial. cum Tryphone, p. 213: “Pay attention to those things I shall mention from the Holy Scriptures; they have need not of an explanation, but only of hearing.”
Irenaeus, bk. 2, c. 46, p. 146: “All Scripture, both prophetic and evangelical, can be heard clearly, without ambiguity, and similarly by all.” Chapter 66, p. 166: “Let us not be thought to flee that proof that is from the Lord’s Scriptures, since the Scriptures declare this very thing much more obviously and clearly to those who do not twist them in corrupt fashion.” Book 3, c. 2: “When heretics argue from the Scriptures, they accuse them of obscurity.”
Tertullian, De resurrectione carnis, c. 47, p. 338: “Come, now, is that which was written to the Thessalonians, which I think is as clear as a ray of the sun, so clear that those shunners of Scripture’s light will accept it?”
Clement of Alexandria, Protreptic., p. 29: “Listen, those of you who are far off! Listen, those of you who are near! The Word is hidden for no one; it is a light common to all people; it illumines everyone. There is nothing Cimmerian nor darkness in the words.” And a little later: “The Word is the sun of the soul that, if it has risen in the depth of the mind, its eye is also enlightened.”
Lactantius, Instit., bk. 1, c. 1: “How much more just is it for me to go to that righteous, true, and divine wisdom as if to a safe harbor, in which all things are favorable to say, sweet to hear, honorable to accept?” Instit., bk. 3, c. 30: “Behold, it is a voice from heaven, teaching the truth and showing us a light that is brighter than the sun itself.” Book 6, c. 21: “Is it really possible that God, the Creator of both mind and tongue, could not speak clearly? On the contrary, in His great providence He wanted those things that are divine to be without false coloring so that all might understand what He was saying to all people.”
Hilary, De Trinit., bk. 7: “No other word about the things of God has been left to human eloquence except God’s Word. Everything else is bound and limited and hindered and veiled. If anyone wants to prove this with words other than those that God spoke, either he does not understand or he has left to his readers something they are not supposed to understand.”
Basil, QQ. contractior., q. 45: “Holy Scripture declares the will of God to all people everywhere. Therefore whoever is this sort of person (who cloaks his ignorance) will not be condemned with a lesser judgment along with the ignorant, but more severely with those of whom it is written: ‘He is like a viper who is unwilling to hear and blocks up his ears’ “[Ps. 54:8].
Epiphanius, Haeres. 76, contr. Act.: “All things in divine Scripture are clear to those who desire to approach the divine Word with pious reasoning.” Page 435: “Everything in Holy Scripture is clear for us. Concerning matters of the holy faith there is nothing crooked, contrary, or knotty.”
Ambrose says at the beginning of Epistle 7: “Paul explains himself in most of his sermons in such a way that whoever discusses them finds nothing to add. If he does want to say something, he performs the function of a grammarian rather than that of a debater.”
Jerome, on Psalm 86, compares the prophets and apostles with the philosophers (which Chrysostom also does in homily 3 de Lazaro) and says: “Plato wrote for few people because barely three men understand him. The apostles and prophets, on the other hand, wrote not for a few but for all the people that all might understand.” On Isaiah 19: “It is the custom of the Scriptures to connect obvious things to obscure things and to declare with clear words that which they had said earlier in enigmas.”
Chrysostom, homily 1 on Matthew: “The Scriptures are easy to understand for the slave, the peasant, the widow, the child, and for him who is not at all wise.” Homily 1 on John: “His teaching is brighter and more illuminating than the sun.” Preface to Romans: “His language glows more brightly than the sun.” Homily 3 on 2 Thessalonians, col. 1413: “All things are clear and manifest in the divine Scriptures. All things necessary are obvious.” Homily 3 de Lazaro: “It cannot happen that you are ignorant of all things equally. Indeed, the grace of the Holy Spirit has arranged and tempered those things in such a way that publicans and fishermen, tentmakers and shepherds, the ignorant and illiterate can be saved through these books. Therefore no ignorant person can escape to the excuse of difficulty.” In the same place, he compares the books of the rhetoricians, philosophers, etc., with the Holy Scriptures and claims: “The former are obscure; the latter are clear and perspicuous.”
Augustine, Epistle 3, vol. 2, col. 15: “The very method of speaking by which Holy Scripture is woven together is as accessible as possible to all, though those things that it contains openly are penetrable by very few. It speaks without subterfuge, like a familiar friend, to the heart of the unlearned and the learned.” De doctr. Christian., bk. 2, c. 6: “So splendidly and salutarily has the Holy Spirit arranged the Scriptures that He satisfies hunger with the clearer passages and takes away loathing with the more difficult passages. Almost nothing is plucked from those obscurities that is not found elsewhere said very plainly.” (Bellarmine makes the exception: “It is not in vain that the little word ‘almost’ is added, because many things in Scripture are stated obscurely and are never explained in other places.” We respond. Those things may remain unknown without a loss of salvation, however. Nevertheless the fact remains that all the necessary things are clear, for he expressly says according to this passage and in treatise 45 on John that “we are nourished by the obvious passages, trained by the obscure.”) The same book, c. 9: “Among those things that are stated openly in the Scriptures, all things are found that contain faith and the morals of living.” De civ. Dei, bk. 15, c. 25: “Somehow Scripture, with such expressions, familiarly makes itself known to every class of men for whom it wants to be the final decree, to terrify the proud, stir up the careless, train those who seek, and feed those who understand. This it would not do if it did not first bend down and descend to those who are lying down.”
** Contr. Donat., bk. 2, c. 6: “There is no obscurity in the Scriptures. However, if you knock at the door of the Scriptures with the hand of your mind, gradually beginning to gather the meaning of their statements, the door will be opened for you not by someone else but by the Word of God because Jesus alone has revealed the mysteries of the Law in His Gospel.” **
De util. credendi, c. 6: “Believe me! Whatever is in those Scriptures is lofty and divine. Therein lies complete truth and the most applicable discipline for refreshing and restoring souls. These have been arranged in such a way that no one can drink from them and be satiated, provided he comes to drink devoutly and piously as true religion demands.” De peccat. merit. et remiss., bk. 2, c. 36: “Even if any of those things (in the question regarding the origin of the soul and other serious matters) could somehow be demonstrated and explained, nevertheless I believe it, because the clearest authority of the divine utterances comes also from this source, if a man could not be ignorant of that without the loss of his salvation.” In Contra Julian., bk. 5, c. 1, he rebukes that heretic “because he was exaggerating the difficulty of the Scriptures and was saying that they were suitable only for the learned.” On Psalm 8: “God has adapted the Scriptures to the capacity of infants and nursing children.” Conc. 23 on Psalm 119: “What he says here—’Your Word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path’—is the Word that is contained in the Holy Scriptures.” Tractate71 21 on John: “Why has this been said except to become known? Why have the words sounded except to be heard? Why have they been heard except to be understood? After all, he would not want to say something he did not want to be understood. Therefore the Lord God wanted nothing to be veiled and has hidden nothing. In fact, He rather wanted the words that He wrote for us to be better suited and clearer than the rays of the sun.” De opere Monach., c. 9: “Those who do not understand the words of Scripture or pretend not to understand them understand our words even less, or profess to understand them less, unless perhaps they understand ours quickly because they are allowed to laugh at what they have understood. This, however, is not allowed in the case of the words of Scripture. Therefore where those words cannot be interpreted according to their own opinion, they respond that the words, even clear and obvious ones, are obscure and uncertain because they do not dare call them corrupt and perverse.” Sermon 11, de verbo Dei, col. 41: “We are nourished by the clear passages and trained by the obscure.”
Cyril of Alexandria, Contra Julian., bk. 7, says, “The Scriptures, in order that they might be known to all, great and small, were entrusted usefully in familiar speech, so that they would transcend the comprehension of no one.” Contra Julian., bk. 9: “Nothing is difficult for those who are versed in the Scriptures, as is fitting.”
Constantine the Great to the fathers of the Council of Nicaea, as recorded in Theodoret, Histor. eccles., bk. 1, c. 7: “The evangelical and apostolic books and the oracles of the ancient prophets educate us clearly as to what we must think about God.”
Isidore of Pelusium, bk. 4, Epistle 82: “If all things had been clear and manifest, when would we have used our prudence, since there would be no searching? On the other hand, if all things had been obscure, we would have fallen (from knowledge) since there would be no finding. But somehow we grasp also those things that are obscure and hidden through those things that are clear.”
Fulgentius, Sermon de confessor.: “Thus a supply of heavenly delights abounds (in the divine commandments) so that in the Word of God there abounds something for the perfect to eat. Something also abounds for the child to suck. There we have the milk by which the weak infancy of the faithful is nursed and the solid food by which the robust youth of the perfect receives the spiritual growth of holy virtue. There we have complete advice for the salvation of all whom God deigns to save. There we have what befits every age, what is suitable for every profession.”
Gregory, Epistle ad Leandr.: “Scripture is a river in which the elephant swims and the lamb wades.” Moral.: “Scripture is food in the more obscure passages, drink in the clearer ones.”
Charlemagne, De imagin., bk. 2, c. 30: “Divine Scripture is a light for mortals, as the prophet says, ‘Your Word is a lamp to my feet’ [Ps. 119:105]. It is the destruction of darkness, as Solomon says, ‘The commandment of the Law is a lamp’ [Prov. 6:23].”
Theophylact on Luke 16: “The Scriptures are like a lamp to uncover the furtive hiding places of the heretics.”
Bernard, Sermon de verbis sapient.: “The Lord has led the righteous along straight paths. The paths of the Lord are straight, beautiful, full, level. They are straight, without error, because they lead to life. They are beautiful, without filth, because they teach purity. They are full with a multitude, because the whole world is now in Christ’s net. They are level, without difficulty, because they bestow gentleness.”