Pope Benedict on the senses of Scripture

Abraham and Isaac:
The literal sense - Abraham believed in the resurrection.
The spiritual sense - Christ would be sacrificed for our sins.

In his Exhortation, Verbum Domini, the Holy Father offers a vision of the senses of Scripture which has been lost to most popular Catholic exegetes of our day. Following the scholastic division of the Scriptural senses into the literal and the spiritual (the spiritual being further divided into three senses: the allegorical, moral, and anagogical), Pope Benedict emphasizes that the senses cannot be wholly separated, since it is the same Spirit which has inspired them. Moreover, the Holy Father offers a vision of the literal sense which is far broader than that which many modern exegetes would allow; but, as will be shown, his Holiness is well founded in the tradition.

The Literal Sense

It is not at all uncommon to find the literal sense of Sacred Scripture defined as “that meaning which the sacred authors (i.e. the human authors) intended to immediately express.” This is the definition adopted by the Pontifical Biblical Commission (PBC). Why, even Mark Shea and Fr. Corapi have defined the literal sense in this way! There is only one problem…neither the Catechism of the Catholic Church, nor any Vatican document, nor the Pope in this most recent Exhortation has adopted this definition. This idea seems to have come in through protestant exegesis; it certainly is not from the Catholic tradition of Scripture study.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, following St. Thomas Aquinas, defines the literal sense of Scripture as “the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation” (CCC 116). As it turns out, this is the definition which Pope Benedict has adopted in his Exhortation – he seems specifically to avoid offering the PBC definition; though he accepts their explanation of the spiritual sense, he does not even mention their analysis of the literal sense.

But what is really the difference between these two definitions? Notice, the modern definition emphasizes the intention of the author as primary, but the Thomistic definition gives priority to the meaning of the words themselves and does not have any explicit reference to the intention of the human author. Thus, whether or not Isaiah explicitly knew of the Virgin Birth, the literal sense of the words, “The virgin shall conceive and bare a son,” is that Blessed Mary would conceive and give birth to the Messiah while yet remaining a virgin. Likewise, whether or not Moses explicitly knew of the Immaculate Conception, the literal meaning of the words, “I will put enmity between you and the woman,” is that the Blessed Virgin Mary would be conceived free from sin and remain unstained by sin throughout her life.

While the PBC definition (surprisingly adopted by many would-be conservatives) plunges us into the psyche of long dead prophets, the Catholic definition of the literal sense takes the text of Scripture as it is and interprets the words themselves. And, if the literal sense is that meaning conveyed by the words themselves, then it becomes clear that the whole of Scripture can be read together, since all of Scripture has God as its primary author and the words of one book may be interpreted by the words of another.

 From the Literal to the Spiritual

The Holy Father writes, “It is necessary, however, to remember that in patristic and medieval times every form of exegesis, including the literal form, was carried out on the basis of faith, without there necessarily being any distinction between the literal sense and the spiritual sense.” Desiring a renewal in modern exegesis, Pope Benedict encourages scholars to recognize “the unity and interrelation between the literal sense and the spiritual sense.”

Literal and spiritual exegesis must never be seen in opposition. However, since that the spiritual sense can be given only by the divine power (ST I, q.1, a.10), it is clear that the spiritual meaning of the text always surpasses the intention of the human author. Thus, if we were to accept the PBC limitation of the literal sense as that which the human author intended to express, there would be no room for this “unity and interrelation” which the Holy Father desires. Nevertheless, taking the Thomistic and Catholic definition of the literal sense as the meaning conveyed by the words themselves (whether or not this meaning is apparent to the human author), there is much space for interplay between the senses.

As words convey meaning by signifying things, so too those things can in turn signify other things. St. Thomas tells us that, when a thing (which has been signified by words) signifies yet another thing, this is the spiritual sense of Scripture.

 Let’s look at an example (from St. Clement’s first letter to the Corinthians): The story of the red cord which Rahab tied to her window signifies the historical event by which Rahab was spared during the destruction of Jericho (this is the literal sense). That red cord which was instrumental in saving Rahab, is itself a sign for the red blood of Christ which is saves humanity from sin and eternal death (this is the spiritual sense). The words “red cord” signify the thing “red cord” – the literal sense. The thing “red cord” signifies another thing “the red blood of Christ” – the spiritual sense. We can see clearly that the scholastic approach holds the two senses of Scripture in an intimate union. The literal sense is the foundation of the spiritual sense, the two work in harmony.

The Bible’s intrinsic unity

If we abandon the Biblical Commission’s definition of the literal sense, we are more easily able to perceive the unity of the Old and the New Testaments. If the literal sense is not determined by the knowledge of the human author, then there is no reason why one passage of Scripture (written by a particular man at a particular time) might not be interpreted in light of another passage of Scripture (written by a different man and at a different time).

Allow me to quote the Holy Father at length (par. 39): “In the passage from letter to spirit, we also learn, within the Church’s great tradition, to see the unity of all Scripture, grounded in the unity of God’s word, which challenges our life and constantly calls us to conversion. Here the words of Hugh of Saint Victor remain a sure guide: ‘All divine Scripture is one book, and this one book is Christ, speaks of Christ and finds its fulfillment in Christ.’ Viewed in purely historical or literary terms, [e.g. following the PBC definition of the literal sense] of course, the Bible is not a single book, but a collection of literary texts composed over the course of a thousand years or more, and its individual books are not easily seen to possess an interior unity; instead, we see clear inconsistencies between them.”

Thus, the Holy Father reminds us of the dictum of St. Gregory the Great (par. 41): “What the Old Testament promised, the New Testament made visible; what the former announces in a hidden way, the latter openly proclaims as present. Therefore the Old Testament is a prophecy of the New Testament; and the best commentary on the Old Testament is the New Testament.”