On November 14 the Second Vatican Council finished its discussion of the liturgy and turned to the all-important area of revelation. The two major problems with which the council became concerned were, first, the exact relationship between Scripture and tradition, and, second, the extent to which literary criticism and similar tools of modern study may be applied to the books of the Bible. That these are problems of a highly controversial nature, and that they are closely interrelated, was evidenced in the opening days of conciliar discussion. On the second day of discussion a number of prelates (including those from France, Belgium, and Germany, who had complained earlier that many of their outstanding theologians had played no part in the drafting of proposals to be discussed at the council) demanded that the schema on revelation be rewritten in its entirety. Others (largely Italian Curial officials and dogmatic theologians in sympathy with the very conservative views of Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, head of the Congregation of the Holy Office, who was responsible for the writing of the schema) countered that it was “basically sound.” Even the title of the schema, “The Two Sources of Revelation,” was very controversial, because the more biblically and ecumenically minded Roman Catholics feel that this post-Tridentine division of revelation into two sources begs the question. Men such as Avery Dulles have pointed out that “the more recent theological opinion … would regard them as two aspects of a single source, rather than as two separate deposits” (“The Council and the Sources of Revelation,” America, 107 [Dec. 1, 1962], p. 1177). Repeatedly scholars of this wing of Catholicism have stressed the fact that such a view makes conversation much easier with the “separated brethren,” whereas the conservative wing has replied that the truth will not give offense to those who are genuinely searching for it. Now that Pope John XXIII has suspended the debate and appointed a special commission to rewrite the draft proposal, it would seem that the liberals have once again gained the upper hand they had under Pius XII. Since Cardinal Ottaviani, who presides over the church’s main doctrinal affairs and was appointed by Pope John as president of the Theological Commission which prepared materials for the council, is the one in charge of maintaining the purity of the church’s doctrinal teaching, such a turn of events is indeed fraught with significance. Perhaps the stranglehold which Italians have long had on ecclesiastical thought, for many years resented especially by Catholics from northern Europe, has at last been broken, although such a prophecy can by no means yet be verified.
This controversy within the walls of Vatican City is not one that was born in the last few months. Its source goes back at least to the Modernist controversy at the turn of the century, and even, in a sense, to the time of Franzelin almost a century ago. More immediately, however, its roots lie in the soil of positive encouragement which Pius XII gave to biblical scholarship in his amazingly liberal 1943 encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritu, which encouraged the Catholic scholar to “go back to the manner of thinking of the Orient in those far centuries, so that, helping himself with the resources of history, of archaeology, of ethnology, and of the other sciences, he may discern and recognize what literary genres the authors of that ancient age wished to use or actually did employ” (quoted in Xavier Rynne, “Letter from Vatican City,” The New Yorker, Oct. 20, 1962, p. 110). Such a position rather significantly arose first in Europe, where the ecumenical endeavors between Catholics and Protestants are considerably more advanced than in America. The Dominican Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem and the Jesuit Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, the two best and most controversial Roman Catholic schools of scriptural studies, had already been in existence for several decades by 1943, and are decidedly liberal from the point of view of Catholicism as a whole, and from the point of view of most dogmatic theologians in particular. The papal encyclical, it may be said, merely gave official approval to the trends which these two schools already represented. All the tools of biblical scholarship, including literary criticism of the Bible and the far-reaching results of archaeological discovery, were employed and have given rise to many scholarly works on the Bible in recent years. As an anonymous article in the November 28, 1962, issue of The Christian Century pointed out, however, “the results of this newer exegesis raise quite a few theological and pastoral problems for the Roman Church” (“Setback for Rome’s Bible Scholars,” p. 1449). These problems are particularly acute in the area of the doctrine of inspiration, because Catholicism has traditionally held to the inspiration and inerrancy of the Sacred Scriptures. In brief the problem is: How can a Catholic reconcile the acceptance of the so-called “assured results” of an occasionally quite radical biblical criticism with the church’s high doctrine of biblical inspiration? It is to this thorny question that European scholars such as Pierre Benoit, Karl Rahner, and Jean Levie have turned themselves. The views which these men espouse have given voice to a vigorous controversy in Rome between the conservatives of the Lateran University and the biblical scholars of the Pontifical Biblical Institute. The subtle power politics of these two groups must be understood to appreciate current discussions on revelation at the council.
The same controversy has been brewing for some time in American Catholic intellectual circles, especially where there are scholars who have studied in Europe. It did not boil over into print, however, until after June 20, 1961. On that date Rome’s Congregation of the Holy Office, which Ottaviani heads, issued Monitum, a warning letter which, while it approved of the enthusiasm of Catholic scholars for biblical study, cautioned that “ideas and opinions are being spread abroad which expose to danger the genuine historical and objective truth of Sacred Scripture, not only of the Old Testament … but even of the New” (quoted in William S. Schnierla, “Roma Locuta …?,” Cross Currents, XII [1962], p. 414).
Since then the Catholic press has seen a rather vigorous and even somewhat heated battle between the biblical scholars (whose views are “liberal”) and the dogmatic theologians (whose views are usually much more conservative). An editorial in the April 20, 1962, issue of Commonweal stated the opposing views quite succinctly. It said (“Biblical Drum Beaters,” p. 77): “On the one hand there are those who, following Pope Pius XII’s famous encyclical on Biblical criticism, Divino Afflante Spiritu, have enthusiastically embraced the method of literary form analysis, stressing the importance of understanding the mentality and modes of expression of the writers of Sacred Scripture. On the other, there are those who feel that matters have gotten out of hand, that some Biblical scholars tend to undermine the historical accuracy of the Gospel, shake the faith of the ordinary man and engage in uncharitable name-calling against conservative theologians.” In other words, the views of the biblical theologians are continually coming into conflict with the traditional dogma of the church, and the conservatives feel that “literary criticism … assists in the clearer understanding of the sources, insofar as the matter is expressed in human language, but its interpretation of the actual meaning of the content is measured by the higher norm, which is sacred theology” (Edward F. Hanahoe, “Correspondence: Biblical Drum Beaters,” Commonweal, LXXVI [August 24, 1962], p. 474). The controversy is an extremely interesting one, and parallels in some respects similar tensions in contemporary American Protestantism.
The Conservatives
After the publication of Monitum, the conservatives expressed their feelings about the situation in the pages of the American Ecclesiastical Review, which, with the Homiletic and Pastoral Review, contains the majority of published conservative opinion on the current biblical controversy. Father Gerald T. Kennedy is admittedly the leading spokesman for this group, and it is to his views that liberal reaction has almost wholly directed itself. In an article entitled “Scripture Revisited: or a Second Look at the Matter” (American Ecclesiastical Review, 145 [July, 1961], p. 6), Father Kennedy singled out the concept of “historicity” as a tool used by the liberals to reject the historical objectivity of much of Scripture. Two months later, commenting on Monitum, Kennedy said that the warning was a reprimand which some Scripture scholars justly deserved (“The Holy Office Monitum on the Teachings of Scripture,” American Ecclesiastical Review, 145 [September, 1961], pp. 148, 149). Their opinions, he said, “flow from erroneous concepts of form criticism and historical method and their nefarious application to the sacred text. The preoccupation with literary forms has been the bane of traditional scholars.” He concluded that “the literary form method of interpreting Scripture, while helpful, is subtly dangerous and should be used almost as an exception of the rule” (p. 148; italics his). In March, 1962, in reply to liberal criticism of his extreme limitation of the use of form criticism, Kennedy replied that the liberals failed to take into account the events which led to the writing of Monitum. The abuses of literary criticism by many biblical scholars had led a good number of Catholics to anticipate some such censure. Kennedy stressed that he did not reject all form criticism, but that he did not regard it as a panacea for all scriptural problems.
Kennedy is not the only conservative to play an active role in the controversy. As early as 1960 the editor of the American Ecclesiastical Review, Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton of the Catholic University of America, had objected to the way in which the new school of biblical exegetes was treating the Gospels. If the Gospels are only developed forms of Christ’s original teaching, “expressive of the mind of the early Church for use in the Liturgy,” he wrote, does this not empty the historical method of traditional exegesis of all its meaning? The Apostolic Delegate of the Vatican in the United States, Archbishop Egidio Vagnozzi, writing in both the American Ecclesiastical Review (August, 1961) and the Homiletic and Pastoral Review (October, 1961), emphasized that Monitum was not issued as the result of the concern of a small number of Vatican officials, and that biblical scholars should not ignore the views of the many Protestants who accept the traditional concept of biblical historicity. Even more significant was an article by Cardinal Ernesto Ruffini in the official Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano (August 24, 1961, p. 1), which appeared in translation in the December, 1961, issue of the American Ecclesiastical Review. Cardinal Ruffini is one of the ten presidents of the Second Vatican Council, and so he is in a position of considerable influence. He feels that the hypercriticism of some biblical scholars who hold advanced views of form criticism is in reality a more insidious form of the Modernism condemned in 1908 by Pope Pius X. He singles out particularly those who reject the literal historicity of the opening chapters of Genesis, Matthew, and Luke. “How can one suppose that the Church has during 19 centuries presented the Divine Book to its children without knowing the literary genre in which it was composed, if this is the key to exact interpretation?” Ruffini asks. (See also a more recent article by Ruffini, “The Bible and Its Genuine Historical and Objective Truth,” American Ecclesiastical Review, 146 [June, 1962], pp. 361–68.)
The Liberals
Despite this support of the conservative cause by such a prominent figure as Cardinal Ruffini, there can be no serious doubt that, among the intellectual leaders of the American Catholic Church at least, the liberal position is numerically far stronger. Its main voice is the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, the literary expression of the members of the Catholic Biblical Association of America. It is of this position that The Christian Century recently said, “Today we can often tell only by the Imprimatur whether a scientific publication dealing with Scripture stems from a Roman Catholic or a Protestant source” (“Setback for Rome’s Biblical Scholars,” p. 1449). In fact a work by C. H. Dodd recently appeared in French translation with the Catholic Church’s nihil obstat! By far the best source for the presentation of the views of the “liberal” school is the papers presented at the annual general meetings of the Catholic Biblical Association, many of which subsequently appear in the pages of the Catholic Biblical Quarterly. If any single leading figure is to be chosen from their ranks, it would undoubtedly be the Jesuit John L. McKenzie. In an article entitled “The Social Character of Inspiration” (Catholic Biblical Quarterly, April, 1962, pp. 115–24), McKenzie vividly exemplifies the dilemma of those who embrace both a radical criticism of the Bible and a high view of its inspiration. Accepting the view that most of the biblical books have no single author (“the compilation of the Pentateuch from scattered sources,” “the ‘school’ of Matthew”), and rejecting the “bookish character of the received theories of inspiration” (“the antiquated and untenable view of verbal dictation”), he suggests the novel theory that it is the people of Yahweh, Israel and the Church, rather than any single individual author, who possess the charisma of inspiration (“the society was the real author of the literature”).
An Orthodox scholar close to this school of thought has said this thesis “may well be in some form the final breakthrough on the problem of the nature of inspiration” (Schnierla, p. 419). McKenzie is also the general editor of the recently published work, The Bible in Current Catholic Thought (New York: Herder and Herder. 1962). This book is advertised as “the first summarizing survey of Catholic biblical scholarship in the United States, written by the most distinguished theologians in the field of Scripture studies.” It is undoubtedly the most important work for an understanding of the contemporary views of at least the more biblical segment of Catholic thought. Xavier Rynne has pointed out the significance of the fact that McKenzie failed to receive a call to Rome for the purpose of preparing the council agenda, although some 800 men from all over the world including many lesser lights were included (Rynne, p. 102).
There are several men in the ranks of the Catholic Biblical Association, however, who promise to be rivals for McKenzie’s position of intellectual leadership; the most we can do here is to select those we feel to have made the most significant contribution to the controversy and to biblical scholarship thus far. No one else has done as thorough a job of giving a carefully reasoned response to the conservative views of Gerald T. Kennedy as has Patrick W. Skehan. Skehan has attempted to show that Kennedy’s understanding of the Holy Office’s Monitum cannot be reconciled with the express statements of Divino Afflante Spiritu (“Why Leave Out Judith?,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly, XXIV [April, 1962], pp. 147–54). David M. Stanley is a leading Catholic exponent of the form criticism of the New Testament. A summary of his paper “The Genres Littéraires of the Gospels,” presented at the 1961 CBAA meeting at Mount Saint Mary’s Seminary of the West, in Norwood, Ohio, gives his conclusion that “to decry the study of literary forms in Gospel matters amounts to a refusal to discover what God is saying to man” (Catholic Biblical Quarterly, XXIII [October, 1961], p. 477). The two scholars we shall mention next are both members of the editorial board of the projected two-volume Jerome Bible Commentary. The general editor of this work is Raymond E. Brown, whose specialty is the Gospel of John. In a recent article, he concludes that John’s theological presuppositions prevent us from reading his Gospel as mere history. His Old Testament editor is the well-known editor of the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Roland E. Murphy. Finally we should not omit the former book review editor of this quarterly, F. Bruce Vawter, who recently authored a significant work on the Old Testament prophetical books. In a paper entitled “The Historical Theology of the Gospels” Vawter made the by-now familiar distinction between objective history and “Salvation History.” He emphasized the importance, in studying the Gospels, of differentiating between the historic element (the verifiable fact) and the historical element (the same fact as a meaningful event with saving consequences for man) (reported in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, XXIII [October, 1961], p. 466). And a few weeks earlier, in the Catholic weekly America, Vawter criticized quite strongly those Catholic newspapers and journals which suggested that Monitum was an overt censure of Catholic biblical scholars (“The Wayward Press,” August 5, 1961, pp. 591, 592).
What significance does this controversy have for Protestants? There can be little doubt that it has proved the longstanding claim of Protestants that the statements of Scripture often bear little resemblance to the dogma of the Roman church. The biblical movement in Catholicism has, however, taken a turn to the left which evangelical scholars can only regret, although the Catholic doctrine of inspiration does temper extremes of critical thought. On the other hand, conservative Protestantism certainly has little kinship with conservative Catholic dogmatic theology. The evangelical by and large does not have the same propensity to preserve the status quo in systematic theology because he takes the sola Scriptura principle seriously. We do not have a traditional dogmatic theology that may not be altered by a more profound study of the Bible. Far more significant is the fact that liberal Catholicism represents a living challenge to our usual assumption that belief in a high view of inspiration is automatic protection against the acceptance of a kind of literary criticism we now reject. Liberal Catholicism also forces us to ask ourselves to what extent we as evangelicals can utilize the insights of form criticism and salvation history, and still be consistently biblical in our concept of inspiration. Our main qualm—one which much biblical scholarship certainly serves to substantiate—is that both liberal Catholics and liberal Protestants so stress the human aspect of Scripture that its divine inspiration is relegated to a position of insignificance. Just as in our doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ, so in our doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture we desperately need to have a full understanding of the human element and a profound understanding of the divine element. Divino Afflante Spiritu has given rise to two extremes within the Catholic Church, neither of which we as conservative Protestants feel does full justice to the grandeur of the Sacred Book.
LESLIE R. KEYLOCK
Research Assistant in Religion
State University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa
