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Dei Verbum: Fit for Purpose?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Anthony Towey
Anthony Towey*
Affiliation:
St Mary's University College
*
Waldegrave Road, Twickenham, TW1 4SX. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Arguably one of the most well received of the documents of Vatican II, this article considers the gestation of Dei Verbum and whether it remains key to Catholic thinking on revelation, exegesis, hermeneutics and the use of the Bible in the Church.

Insofar as Dei Verbum enabled Catholicism to rediscover its own sacramental paradigm of revelation, it can be said to have effected a decisive move away from a propositional view which risks reducing the drama of salvation to a combination of bullet points and performance indicators. Moreover, Catholic biblical theology has enjoyed a welcome renaissance in these subsequent decades and scripture now plays a more obvious part in liturgy and piety.

Though there are lacunae (e.g. anthropology, ecology), and though some of the exegetical tensions have been by-passed by postmodern hermeneutics, perhaps the more interesting questions that remain will centre not on the scriptures but on a renewed understanding of the nature of tradition and the creativity of its relationship with the magisterium.

Keywords

Dei VerbumRevelationVatican IIHermeneuticsSola Scriptura
Type
Original Articles
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 90 , Issue 1026 , March 2009 , pp. 206 - 218
Copyright
© The author 2009. Journal compilation © The Dominican Council/Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2009

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References

1 Michael Hayes, St. Mary's University College, Strawberry Hill, 5 September 2008.

2 Providentissimus Deus,§16.

3 See e.g. Komonchak, J., ‘The Preparation of Vatican II’, in Alberigo, G. and Komonchak, J. (eds), History of Vatican II (New York: Orbis, 1995–2006), Vol. I, pp. 304–306Google Scholar.

4 See e.g. Ratzinger, J., Grillmeier, A. and Rigaux, B. in Vorgrimler, H. (ed.), Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, (New York: Herder & Herder, 1969), Vol. III, pp. 155–272Google Scholar.

5 G. Weigel quoted in Lash, N., Theology for Pilgrims, (London: DLT, 2008) p. 241Google Scholar. In chapter 16, ‘What happened at Vatican II,’ Lash alerts the reader to some of the tensions, not least within the contemporary Italian Church, surrounding the historiography of the Council.

6 See e.g. É. Fouilloux in G. Alberigo and J. Komonchak, Op. cit. Vol. I, pp. 97–166.

7 ‘The Vatican Council on Divine Revelation: An Interview with Abbot Butler’Clergy Review Vol. 50: 9 (1965), p. 660Google Scholar.

8 Hanc veritatem et disciplinam contineri in libris scriptis et sine scripto traditionibus, quae ab ipsius Christi ore ab Apostolis acceptae aut ab ipsis Apostolis Spiritu Sancto dictante quasi per manus traditae ad nos usque pervenerunt, (DS 1501 & 3006).

9 As well as documents collected by A. Filippi and E. Lora in the Enchiridion Biblicum, (Bologna, Dehoniane, 1993)Google Scholar a useful resource for English speakers is Béchard, D.P. (ed., trans.) The Scripture Documents, (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

10 The trouble brewed following a speech by John XXIII, 16 February 1960, to the Pontifical Biblical Institute (The Biblicum) which warned of exegetical excess – see AAS 52 155 OTC §886. L.A. Schökel responded with ‘Dove va l'esegesi cattolica?’ in Civiltà Cattolica III. 2645, (3 September 1960) insisting that new pathways had opened up under Pius XII. The reply from A. Romeo,‘L'Enciclica “Divino afflante Spiritu” e le “Opiniones Nouveau”’, Divinitas 4 (1960), pp. 387–456 begged to differ. The Holy Office intervened and suspended the Biblicum scholars S. Lyonnet and M. Zerwick in 1961. See Prior, J.G., The Historical Critical Method in Catholic Exegesis, Gregoriana, Tesi n.50, (Rome: P.U.G., 2001), pp. 129–149Google Scholar. Butler also alludes to this dispute, Op.cit. Vol. 50, p. 665.

11 C. Theobald in G. Alberigo and J. Komonchak, Op. cit. Vol. V, pp. 321–334.

12 DV §9 Quo fit ut Ecclesia certitudinem suam de omnibus revelatis non per solam Sacram Scripturam hauriat.

13 Only weeks earlier Butler had confidently predicted that “Anglicans will be delighted with the schema's presentation of the Bible as the saving word of God. And, of course, they should be delighted to find that this document does not canonize the post-Tridentine theory of the insufficiency of Scripture”, Op. cit., Vol. 50, p. 669. Laurentin blamed this on the climate of fear engendered by Bea's unexpected intervention and the general impression that he had come with a mandate from the Pope to get the modi accepted – cf. Theobald in G. Alberigo and J. Komonchak, Op. cit., Vol. V, p. 336.

14 DV §19 ut vera et sincera de Iesu nobiscum communicarent.

15 See J. Prignon's report of Montini's meeting with Charue, 12 October 1965 cited by Theobald in G. Alberigo and J. Komonchak, Op. cit., Vol. V, p. 325.

16 DV §11 veritatem, quam Deus nostrae salutis causa, Litteris Sacris consignari voluit.

17 DV §19 quorum historicitatem incunctanter affirmat.

18 ‘Divine Revelation: Scripture, Tradition and Scholarship’, The Tablet, Vol. CCIX (1965) p. 1318Google Scholar.

19 ‘The Day of the “Periti” and a Warning on Aggiornamento’, Ibid., p. 1319.

20 ‘News and Notes’, The Tablet, Vol. (1965) p. 1396.

21 Quoted by C. Theobald in G. Alberigo and J. Komonchak, Op. cit., Vol V, p. 353.

22 Brown, R.E., Fitzmyer, J. (eds.), Jerome Biblical Commentary (Englewood NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968)Google Scholar.

23 Latourelle, R. and Fisichella, R., (eds.), Dictionary of Fundamental Theology, (New York: Crossroad, 1994)Google Scholar s.v. ‘Dei verbum.’

24 Latourelle, R. (ed.), Vaticano II: Bilancio e Prospettivi venticinque anni dopo, Vol. I (Assisi: Cittadella Editrice, 1987)Google Scholar.

25 Graffy, A., ‘Dei verbum: Before and After’, The Pastoral Review, Vol. 1:6 (2005) pp. 48–55Google Scholar.

26 O'Collins, G., Living Vatican II – Twenty First Council for the Twentieth Century, (New York: Paulist Press, 2006), pp. 8–9, 150Google Scholar.

27 G. O'Collins, St. Mary's University College, Strawberry Hill, 1 September 2008.

28 Lash, N., Theology for Pilgrims, (London: DLT, 2008), pp. 249–252Google Scholar. Lash takes Cardinal William Levada of the CDF to task for his ill-considered defence of the sensus plenior reading of Scripture which relies on a mistranslation of the Conciliar text.

29 ‘The Absence and Presence of Fundamental Theology at Vatican II’ in Latourelle, R. (ed.), Vatican II: Assessment and Perspectives Twenty-five Years After, (New York: Crossroad, 1994), Vol. III, pp. 378–415Google Scholar. On page 390 he writes: “While Bultmann was carrying out his work of demolition, the Council was silent over fundamental theology – the discipline that could have countered it on several major fronts. The question of the identity of Jesus and the historical signs that substantiate his claim as the Son of the Father is at the very heart of Christianity. In this respect, we would very happily have seen a Constitution as short and condensed as Dei verbum, but on Christ and the problems of Christology, added to the three documents on the Church, (Lumen gentium, Gaudium et spes, and Ad gentes), since Christ was just as much in need of rehabilitation as the Church was.”

30 Blondel's importance at Vatican II is discussed by, for example, Butler in Clergy Review (Vol 50, 1965), pp. 664–665 and echoed by the Swiss philosopher P. Henrici SJ who has also long proposed connections between Blondel and Hegel.

31 A document such as Veritatis splendor (1993) probably owes its engaging biblical methodology to the influence of Dei verbum, but its crystallized hermeneutics of sin echo the tones of pre-conciliar manuals.

32 See, for example, J. Ratzinger, ‘On the relationship between the Magisterium and Exegetes’ (10 May 2003). This address on the 100th anniversary of the Pontifical Biblical Commission is available via the website of the Holy See.

33 “It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God's most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.”

34 Laurentin, R., Les Évangiles de l'Enfance, (Paris: Desclée, 1982) p. 439Google Scholar.

35 Brown, R. E., ‘More polemical than instructive: R. Laurentin on the Infancy Narratives’, Marianum Vol. 47 (1985) p. 191Google Scholar.

36 Somewhat controversially he invokes the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle from quantum physics as part of the argument – cf. Benedict, XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, (London: Bloomsbury, 2005), pp. 105–8Google Scholar.

37 E. Duffy, in conference at the Catholic Theological Association, Ushaw College, Sept. 9th, 2008Google Scholar.

38 See Luff, S. G. A., ‘The Enthronement of the Gospels at the Council’ in Clergy Review, Vol. 50: 9 (1965), pp. 670–674Google Scholar