The Council of Florence reads as follows:
"Quinque Moysi id est Genesi, Exodo, Levitico, Numeris, Deuteronomio". (The five [books] of Moses, that is: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.)
"Quatuordecim Epistolis Pauli, Ad Romanos... Ad Hebreos." (The fourteen Epistles of Paul: To the Romans... to the Hebrews.)
The Council of Trent reads as follows:
"Quinque Moysis, id est Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numeri, Deuteronomium". Notice the slight changes in the Latin grammar governing the word ending.
"Quatuordecim epistolae Pauli apostoli, ad Romanos... ad Hebraeos."
Scott Hahn's Catholic Bible Dictionary has excellent entries on both the Pentateuch and the Letter to the Hebrews for those interested in the question of authorship as it stands today. If you don't have the Catholic Bible Dictionary, please purchase it as it will be a tremendous enrichment to your faith and a worth companion as you heed our Holy Father's encouragement to know and love the Bible more each day.
God bless you!
9 comments:
It should be noted that the Pontifical Biblical Commission (27 June 1906) replied "No," to the question, "Whether the Mosaic authenticity of the Pentateuch necessarily demands such a redaction of the whole work that it must be held absolutely that Moses wrote all and each book with his own hand, or dictated them to copyists?"
The PBC also replied, "Yes," to the question: "whether also the hypothesis can be permitted of those who think that the work was conceived by him under the influence of divine inspiration, and was committed to another or several to be put into writing, but in such manner that they rendered his thought faithfully, wrote nothing contrary to his wish, omitted nothing; and, finally, when the work was composed in this way, approved by Moses as its chief and inspired author, it was published under his name?"
And also, "Yes," to: "Whether, safeguarding substantially the Mosaic authenticity and the integrity of the Pentateuch, it can be admitted that in such a long course of ages it underwent some modifications, for example: additions made after the death of Moses, or by an inspired author, or glosses and explanations inserted in the texts, certain words and forms of the antiquated language translated into more modern language; finally false readings to be ascribed to the errors of copyists, which should be examined and passed upon according to the norms of textual criticism?"
Concerning the authorship of Hebrews, it is worth noting that St. Thomas Aquinas believed that St. Luke was the author, or rather translator into Greek, of that epistle (see Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, no. 5). That would, of course, still make Hebrews a "Pauline," since Luke was a close associate of the Apostle to the Gentiles, even if Paul didn't write a Semitic original, whose final product is the actual inspired Greek text.
It seems to me that Trent's statements of Mosaic and Pauline authorship of the Pentateuch and Hebrews, respectively, are not dogmatic, infallible statements; rather, they indicate "Mosaic" and "Pauline" authorship in the sense that the PBC would indicate and in the same sense that St. Thomas speaks, respectively.
Campion,
I would add that, according to the most recent magisterial pronouncements on the matter, it does not seem to be permissible for seminaries to teach that Moses did not write the Pentateuch and that St. Paul did not write Hebrews ... some of this text is in the citation provided by DMW ...
this and much more from the PBC can be found here: http://www.catholicintl.com/epologetics/articles/bible/pbc.htm
@DMW,
You are correct that St. Thomas thinks that St. Luke translated the letter into Greek, but I must point out that (for the Angelic Doctor), St. Paul is most certainly the human author of the Letter to the Hebrews.
In the same prologue to which you refer, he comments extensively on the Apostle's intentions in writing the letter and on how this letter relates to the other letters which St. Paul wrote.
Additionally, throughout the commentary, St. Thomas speaks of St. Paul and not of St. Luke as the author.
If St. Paul did not write a Semitic original, then the whole of St. Thomas' commentary would be jeopardized. Hence, if we are invoking St. Thomas' authority on the matter, I think we better hold to a pretty strong sense of Pauline and Mosaic authorship.
I recently put up on my blog this pamphlet published in 1945 which may be of help: http://lxoa.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/iob.pdf
Back in the Dark Ages, when I was in grade school, Hebrews was always referred to as "St. Paul's Letters to the Hebrews". After the Second Vatican Council, this changed and we were told that they weren't sure who wrote Hebrews.
Veronica
All power to St Thomas (my confirmation saint!) but the Letter to the Hebrews just seems, on the face of it, to obviously have been written by another person than the one who wrote Romans, Titus, Ephesians, etc. On what basis was the Pauline authorship presumed? Do they think Paul had a different purpose in writing it than he did in the pastoral epistles and so wrote in a distinctively different style?
@Mark Harden,
No offense to you, but I never really bought the whole argument about the "style" being so different.
Even take two letters which almost everyone admits to be written by St. Paul -- Romans and Galatians. The "style" is very very different between these. Or how about 1 Corinthians and Philemon?
As to why Hebrews has been attributed to St. Paul ... there is the extremely strong tradition on the matter(since nearly every, thought not all, of the Fathers and early theologians held that Paul was the author [including Origen, although he is often mis-cited as contra-Pauline authorship]).
Moreover, it is placed at the end of the other Pauline Epistles in the Canon.
Finally, the general theology of the letter is very Pauline.
Finally, regarding style, it is certainly more than enough to explain the variation by saying that it was intended more as a sermon than a letter, and that it was written in Hebrew and translated by St. Luke into Greek.
Thanks for taking time to clarify. I'll look closer at the stylistic similarities. Thanks also for the blog, it's fascinating to see the logical style of Aquinas applied to modern-day questions. Keep up the good work!
All of Paul's epistles are one-sided affairs, that is to say, we don't have what the Romans or the Galatians or the Corinthians may or may not have written to Paul or in reply to Paul's letters.
Don't we write differently to different individuals or different groups? Don't we take different lengths of time to compose a document? Don't we write differently depending on our mood? Time of day? Season?
There are so many variables which affect style that stylistic arguments for authorship are specious, at best, and are usually the result of eisegesis.
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