The language of symbol makes provision for the expression of areas of religious experience that are not accessible to purely conceptual reasoning but which have a genuine value for the expression of truth. For this reason, interdisciplinary study conducted in common by exegetes and psychologists or psychoanalysts offers particular advantages, especially when objectively grounded and confirmed by pastoral experience. Numerous examples could be cited showing the necessity of a collaborative effort on the part of exegetes and psychologists: to ascertain the meaning of cultic ritual, of sacrifice, of bans, to explain the use of imagery in biblical language, the metaphorical significance of miracle stories, the wellsprings of apocalyptic visual and auditory experiences.
The dialogue between exegesis and psychology or psychoanalysis, begun with a view to a better understanding of the Bible, should clearly be conducted in a critical manner, respecting the boundaries of each discipline.
Whatever the circumstances, a psychology or psychoanalysis of an atheistic nature disqualifies itself from giving proper consideration to the data of faith. Useful as they may be to determine more exactly the extent of human responsibility, psychology and psychoanalysis should not serve to eliminate the reality of sin and of salvation.
One should moreover take care not to confuse spontaneous religiosity and biblical revelation or impugn the historical character of the Bible's message, which bestows upon it the value of a unique event.
Let us note moreover that one cannot speak of "psychoanalytical exegesis" as though it existed in one single form. In fact, proceeding from the different fields of psychology and from the various schools of thought, there exists a whole range of approaches capable of shedding helpful light upon the human and theological interpretation of the Bible. To absolutize one or other of the approaches taken by the various schools of psychology and psychoanalysis would not serve to make collaborative effort in this area more fruitful but rather render it harmful.
The human sciences are not confined to sociology, cultural anthropology and psychology. Other disciplines can also be very useful for the interpretation of the Bible.
In all these areas it is necessary to take good account of competence in the particular field and to recognize that only rarely will one and the same person be fully qualified in both exegesis and one or other of the human sciences.
The interpretation of a text is always dependent on the mindset and concerns of its readers. Readers give privileged attention to certain aspects and, without even being aware of it, neglect others. Thus it is inevitable that some exegetes bring to their work points of view that are new and responsive to contemporary currents of thought which have not up till now been taken sufficiently into consideration. It is important that they do so with critical discernment.
The movements in this regard which claim particular attention today are those of liberation theology and feminism. The theology of liberation is a complex phenomenon, which ought not be oversimplified.
It began to establish itself as a theological movement in the early s. Over and beyond the economic, social and political circumstances of Latin America, its starting point is to be found in two great events in the recent life of the church: the Second Vatican Council, with its declared intention of "aggiornamento" and of orienting the pastoral work of the church toward the needs of the contemporary world, and the Second General Conference of the Episcopate of Latin America held at Medellin in , which applied the teachings of the council to the needs of Latin America.
The movement has since spread also to other parts of the world Africa, Asia, the black population of the United States. It is not all that easy to discern if there truly exists "one theology of liberation and to define what its methodology might be.
It is equally difficult to determine adequately its manner of reading the Bible, in a way which would lead to an accurate assessment of advantages and limitations. One can say that liberation theology adopts no particular methodology. But starting from its own socio-cultural and political point of view, it practices a reading of the Bible which is oriented to the needs of the people, who seek in the Scriptures nourishment for their faith and their life.
Liberation theology is not content with an objectifying interpretation which concentrates on what the text said in its original context. It seeks a reading drawn from the situation of people as it is lived here and now. If a people lives in circumstances of oppression, one must go to the Bible to find there nourishment capable of sustaining the people in its struggles and its hopes. The reality of the present time should not be ignored but, on the contrary, met head on, with a view to shedding upon it the light of the word.
From this light will come authentic Christian praxis, leading to the transformation of society through works of justice and love.
Within the vision of faith Scripture is transformed into a dynamic impulse for full liberation. God is present in the history of his people, bringing them salvation. He is the God of the poor and cannot tolerate oppression or injustice. It follows that exegesis cannot be neutral, but must, in imitation of God, take sides on behalf of the poor and be engaged in the struggle to liberate the oppressed.
It is precisely participation in this struggle that allows those interpretations to surface which are discovered only when the biblical texts are read in a context of solidarity with the oppressed.
Because the liberation of the oppressed is a communal process, the community of the poor is the privileged addressee of the Bible as word of liberation. Moreover, since the biblical texts were written for communities, it is to communities in the first place that the reading of the Bible has been entrusted.
Liberation theology includes elements of undoubted value: the deep awareness of the presence of God who saves; the insistence on the communal dimension of faith; the pressing sense of need for a liberating praxis rooted in justice and love; a fresh reading of the Bible which seeks to make of the word of God the light and the nourishment of the people of God in the midst of its struggles and hopes.
In all these ways it underlines the capacity of the inspired text to speak to the world of today. But a reading of the Bible from a stance of such commitment also involves some risks. Since liberation theology is tied to a movement that is still in a process of development, the remarks which follow can only be provisional.
This kind of reading is centered on narrative and prophetic texts which highlight situations of oppression and which inspire a praxis leading to social change. At times such a reading can be limited, not giving enough attention to other texts of the Bible. It is true that exegesis cannot be neutral, but it must also take care not to become one-sided. Moreover, social and political action is not the direct task of the exegete.
In their desire to insert the biblical message into a socio-political context some theologians and exegetes have made use of various instruments for the analysis of social reality. Within this perspective certain streams of liberation theology have conducted an analysis inspired by materialist doctrines, and it is within such frame of reference that they have also read the Bible, a practice which is very questionable, especially when it involves the Marxist principle of the class struggle.
Under the pressure of enormous social problems, there has understandably been more emphasis on an earthly eschatology. Sometimes this has been to the detriment of the more transcendent dimensions of Scriptural eschatology.
More recent social and political changes have led this approach to ask itself new questions and to seek new directions. For its further development and fruitfulness within the church, a decisive factor will be the clarification of its hermeneutical presuppositions, its methods and its coherence with the faith and the tradition of the church as a whole.
The feminist biblical hermeneutic had its origin in the United States toward the end of the 19th century. In the socio-cultural context of the struggle for the rights of women, the editorial board of a committee charged with the revision of the Bible produced "The Woman's Bible" in two volumes New York , This movement took on fresh life in the s and has since undergone an enormous development in connection with the movement for the liberation of women, especially in North America.
To be precise, several forms of feminist biblical hermeneutics have to be distinguished, for the approaches taken are very diverse. All unite around a common theme, woman, and a common goal: the liberation of women and the acquisition on their part of rights equal to those enjoyed by men.
We can here mention three principal forms of feminist biblical hermeneutics: the radical form, the neo-orthodox form and the critical form. The "radical" form denies all authority to the Bible, maintaining that it has been produced by men simply with a view to confirming man's age-old domination of woman androcentrism.
The "neo-orthodox" form accepts the Bible as prophetic and as potentially of service, at least to the extent that it takes sides on behalf of the oppressed and thus also of women, this orientation is adopted as a "canon within the canon," so as to highlight whatever in the Bible favors the liberation of women and the acquisition of their rights.
The "critical" form, employing a subtle methodology, seeks to rediscover the status and role of women disciples within the life of Jesus and in the Pauline churches.
At this period, it maintains, a certain equality prevailed. But this equality has for the most part been concealed in the writings of the New Testament, something which came to be more and more the case as a tendency toward patriarchy and androcentrism became increasingly dominant.
Feminist hermeneutic has not developed a new methodology. It employs the current methods of exegesis, especially the historical-critical method. But it does add two criteria of investigation. The first is the feminist criterion, borrowed from the women's liberation movement, in line with the more general direction of liberation theology. This criterion involves a hermeneutic of suspicion: Since history was normally written by the victors, establishing the full truth requires that one does not simply trust texts as they stand but look for signs which may reveal something quite different.
The second criterion is sociological; it is based on the study of societies in the biblical times, their social stratification and the position they accorded to women. With respect to the New Testament documents, the goal of study, in a word is not the idea of woman as expressed in the New Testament but the historical reconstruction of two different situations of woman in the first century: that which was the norm in Jewish and Greco-Roman society and that which represented the innovation that took shape in the public life of Jesus and in the Pauline churches, where the disciples of Jesus formed "a community of equals.
The aim is to rediscover for today the forgotten history of the role of women in the earliest stages of the church. Feminist exegesis has brought many benefits. Women have played a more active part in exegetical research. They have succeeded, often better than men, in detecting the presence, the significance and the role of women in the Bible, in Christian origins and in the church.
The worldview of today, because of its greater attention to the dignity of women and to their role in society and in the church, ensures that new questions are put to the biblical text, which in turn occasions new discoveries.
Feminine sensitivity helps to unmask and correct certain commonly accepted interpretations which were tendentious and sought to justify the male domination of women.
With regard to the Old Testament, several studies have striven to come to a better understanding of the image of God. The God of the Bible is not a projection of a patriarchal mentality. He is Father, but also the God of tenderness and maternal love.
Feminist exegesis, to the extent that it proceeds from a preconceived judgment, runs the risk of interpreting the biblical texts in a tendentious and thus debatable manner. It entails rejecting the content of the inspired texts in preference for a hypothetical construction, quite different in nature. Feminist exegesis often raises questions of power within the church, questions which, as is obvious, are matters of discussion and even of confrontation. In this area, feminist exegesis can be useful to the church only to the degree that it does not fall into the very traps it denounces and that it does not lose sight of the evangelical teaching concerning power as service, a teaching addressed by Jesus to all disciples, men and women.
Fundamentalist interpretation starts from the principle that the Bible, being the word of God, inspired and free from error, should be read and interpreted literally in all its details. But by "literal interpretation" it understands a naively literalist interpretation, one, that is to say, which excludes every effort at understanding the Bible that takes account of its historical origins and development.
It is opposed, therefore, to the use of the historical-critical method, as indeed to the use of any other scientific method for the interpretation of Scripture. The fundamentalist interpretation had its origin at the time of the Reformation, arising out of a concern for fidelity to the literal meaning of Scripture. After the century of the Enlightenment it emerged in Protestantism as a bulwark against liberal exegesis. At this meeting, conservative Protestant exegetes defined "five points of fundamentalism": the verbal inerrancy of Scripture, the divinity of Christ, his virginal birth, the doctrine of vicarious expiation and the bodily resurrection at the time of the second coming of Christ.
As the fundamentalist way of reading the Bible spread to other parts of the world, it gave rise to other ways of interpretation, equally "literalist," in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. As the 20th century comes to an end, this kind of interpretation is winning more and more adherents, in religious groups and sects, as also among Catholics.
Fundamentalism is right to insist on the divine inspiration of the Bible, the inerrancy of the word of God and other biblical truths included in its five fundamental points. But its way of presenting these truths is rooted in an ideology which is not biblical, whatever the proponents of this approach might say. For it demands an unshakable adherence to rigid doctrinal points of view and imposes, as the only source of teaching for Christian life and salvation, a reading of the Bible which rejects all questioning and any kind of critical research.
The basic problem with fundamentalist interpretation of this kind is that, refusing to take into account the historical character of biblical revelation, it makes itself incapable of accepting the full truth of the incarnation itself. As regards relationships with God, fundamentalism seeks to escape any closeness of the divine and the human.
It refuses to admit that the inspired word of God has been expressed in human language and that this word has been expressed, under divine inspiration, by human authors possessed of limited capacities and resources. For this reason, it tends to treat the biblical text as if it had been dictated word for word by the Spirit. It fails to recognize that the word of God has been formulated in language and expression conditioned by various periods.
It pays no attention to the literary forms and to the human ways of thinking to be found in the biblical texts, many of which are the result of a process extending over long periods of time and bearing the mark of very diverse historical situations.
Fundamentalism also places undue stress upon the inerrancy of certain details in the biblical texts, especially in what concerns historical events or supposedly scientific truth. It often historicizes material which from the start never claimed to be historical. It considers historical everything that is reported or recounted with verbs in the past tense, failing to take the necessary account of the possibility of symbolic or figurative meaning. Fundamentalism often shows a tendency to ignore or to deny the problems presented by the biblical text in its original Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek form.
It is often narrowly bound to one fixed translation, whether old or present-day. In what concerns the Gospels, fundamentalism does not take into account the development of the Gospel tradition, but naively confuses the final stage of this tradition what the evangelists have written with the initial the words and deeds of the historical Jesus.
At the same time fundamentalism neglects an important fact: The way in which the first Christian communities themselves understood the impact produced by Jesus of Nazareth and his message. But it is precisely there that we find a witness to the apostolic origin of the Christian faith and its direct expression. Fundamentalism thus misrepresents the call voiced by the Gospel itself. Fundamentalism likewise tends to adopt very narrow points of view. It accepts the literal reality of an ancient, out-of-date cosmology simply because it is found expressed in the Bible; this blocks any dialogue with a broader way of seeing the relationship between culture and faith.
Finally, in its attachment to the principle "Scripture alone," fundamentalism separates the interpretation of the Bible from the tradition, which, guided by the Spirit, has authentically developed in union with Scripture in the heart of the community of faith.
It fails to realize that the New Testament took form within the Christian church and that it is the Holy Scripture of this church, the existence of which preceded the composition of the texts. Because of this, fundamentalism is often anti-church, it considers of little importance the creeds, the doctrines and liturgical practices which have become part of church tradition, as well as the teaching function of the church itself.
It presents itself as a form of private interpretation which does not acknowledge that the church is founded on the Bible and draws its life and inspiration from Scripture. The fundamentalist approach is dangerous, for it is attractive to people who look to the Bible for ready answers to the problems of life. It can deceive these people, offering them interpretations that are pious but illusory, instead of telling them that the Bible does not necessarily contain an immediate answer to each and every problem.
Without saying as much in so many words, fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide. It injects into life a false certitude, for it unwittingly confuses the divine substance of the biblical message with what are in fact its human limitations. In its recent course exegesis has been challenged to some rethinking in the light of contemporary philosophical hermeneutics, which has stressed the involvement of the knowing subject in human understanding, especially as regards historical knowledge.
Hermeneutical reflection took new life with the publication of the works of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Wilhelm Dilthey and above all, Martin Heidegger. In the footsteps of these philosophers, but also to some extent moving away from them, various authors have more deeply developed contemporary hermeneutical theory and its applications to Scripture.
It is not possible to give a complete summary of their thought here. It will be enough to indicate certain central ideas of their philosophies which have had their impact on the interpretation of biblical texts. Conscious of the cultural distance between the world of the first century and that of the 20th, Bultmann was particularly anxious to make the reality of which the Bible treats speak to his contemporaries.
He insisted upon the "Pre-understanding" necessary for all understanding and elaborated the theory of the existential interpretation of the New Testament writings. Relying upon the thinking of Heidegger, Bultmann insisted that it is not possible to have an exegesis of a biblical text without presuppositions which guide comprehension.
Bultmann asked what might be the most appropriate frame of thought for defining the sort of questions that would render the texts of Scripture understandable to people of today. He claimed to have found the answer in the existential analysis of Heidegger, maintaining that Heideggerian existential principles have a universal application and offer structures and concepts most appropriate for the understanding of human existence as revealed in the New Testament message.
Gadamer likewise stresses the historical distance between the text and its interpreter. He takes up and develops the theory of the hermeneutical circle. Anticipations and preconceptions affecting our understanding stem from the tradition which carries us. This tradition consists in a mass of historical and cultural data which constitute our life context and our horizon of understanding. The interpreter is obliged to enter into dialogue with the reality at stake in the text.
Understanding is reached in the fusion of the differing horizons of text and reader "horizontverschmelzung". This is possible only to the extent that there is a "belonging" "zugehorigkeit" , that is, a fundamental affinity between the interpreter and his or her object. Hermeneutics is a dialectical process: The understanding of a text always entails an enhanced understanding of oneself. With regard to the hermeneutical thought of Ricoeur, the principal thing to note is the highlighting of the function of distantiation.
This is the necessary prelude to any correct appropriation of a text. A first distancing occurs between the text and its author, for, once produced, the text takes on a certain autonomy in relation to its author; it begins its own career of meaning. Another distancing exists between the text and its successive readers; these have to respect the world of the text in its otherness. Thus the methods of literary and historical analysis are necessary for interpretation.
Yet the meaning of a text can be fully grasped only as it is actualized in the lives of readers who appropriate it. Beginning with their situation, they are summoned to uncover new meanings, along the fundamental line of meaning indicated by the text. Biblical knowledge should not stop short at language, it must seek to arrive at the reality of which the language speaks. The religious language of the Bible is a symbolic language which "gives rise to thought" "donne a penser" , a language the full richness of which one never ceases to discover, a language which points to a transcendent reality and which, at the same time, awakens human beings to the deepest dimensions of personal existence.
What is to be said about these contemporary theories of the interpretation of texts? The Bible is the word of God for all succeeding ages. Hence the absolute necessity of a hermeneutical theory which allows for the incorporation of the methods of literary and historical criticism within a broader model of interpretation. It is a question of overcoming the distance between the time of the authors and first addressees of the biblical texts, and our own contemporary age, and of doing so in a way that permits a correct actualization of the Scriptural message so that the Christian life of faith may find nourishment.
All exegesis of texts is thus summoned to make itself fully complete through a "hermeneutics" understood in this modern sense. The Bible itself and the history of its interpretation point to the need for a hermeneutics for an interpretation, that is, that proceeds from and addresses our world today. The whole complex of the Old and New Testament writings show themselves to be the product of a long process where founding events constantly find reinterpretation through connection with the life of communities of faith.
In church tradition, the fathers, as first interpreters of Scripture, considered that their exegesis of texts was complete only when it had found a meaning relevant to the situation of Christians in their own day. Exegesis is truly faithful to proper intention of biblical texts when it goes not only to the heart of their formulation to find the reality of faith there expressed but also seeks to link this reality to the experience of faith in our present world.
Contemporary hermeneutics is a healthy reaction to historical positivism and to the temptation to apply to the study of the Bible the purely objective criteria used in the natural sciences.
On the one hand, all events reported in the Bible are interpreted events. On the other, all exegesis of the accounts of these events necessarily involves the exegete's own subjectivity. Access to a proper understanding of biblical texts is only granted to the person who has an affinity with what the text is saying on the basis of life experience.
The question which faces every exegete is this: Which hermeneutical theory best enables a proper grasp of the profound reality of which Scripture speaks and its meaningful expression for people today? We must frankly accept that certain hermeneutical theories are inadequate for interpreting Scripture. For example, Bultmann's existentialist interpretation tends to enclose the Christian message within the constraints of a particular philosophy.
Moreover, by virtue of the presuppositions insisted upon in this hermeneutic, the religious message of the Bible is for the most part emptied of its objective reality by means of an excessive "demythologization" and tends to be reduced to an anthropological message only.
Philosophy becomes the norm of interpretation, rather than an instrument for understanding the central object of all interpretation: the person of Jesus Christ and the saving events accomplished in human history. An authentic interpretation of Scripture, then, involves in the first place a welcoming of the meaning that is given in the events and, in a supreme way, in the person of Jesus Christ.
This meaning is expressed in the text. Home Books Bibles. Items on Page 20 Items 40 Items 80 Items. Select One List Grid. Quick Look. Jerome's meticulous translation from the original Hebrew and Greek more than 1, years ago. Bound in soft genuine Moroccan leather, this Many Bible scholars consider this translation to be the best rendering of Scripture into modern English.
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This newly designed and typeset 2nd edition of the RSV Catholic Finally, we would like to draw attention to a little-known event that had a strong impact on the French Church a few years before Montfort began his apostolic ministry. After the Edict of Nantes had been revoked in , over a million books were distributed to "newly converted" laypeople on the initiative of the Church authorities Harlay, P. Half these books were copies of the New Testament by P.
Amelote, the Psalms, and the Imitation of Jesus Christ. The Catholic Church had no official translation of the Bible in French, and the de Sacy version was not completed until This initiative, which was running more or less contrary to the Tridentine prescriptions and to the rules laid down by Rome in the Index, was more fraught with consequences than was suspected at the time.
The distribution of books was designed to restore the balance between clerics, who alone had access to the sacred and inspired texts in Latin, and laypeople, who were only able to receive oral instruction in the truths of the faith through sermons, spiritual direction, and confession and were therefore dependent on clerics.
In contrast to the traditional Church, which fostered more emotional "popular" devotions, as more suitable for laypeople, this pastoral initiative promoting the written word heralded a new Church, more intellectual, more individual, which, as a natural consequence, was to become more critical.
Be that as it may, the distribution of books was a fait accompli, and from then on French laypeople had free access to the texts distributed to the "newly converted. We know that Montfort always fostered popular devotions. Though he mentions devotional books, Scripture does come first.
The Council of Trent also drew up a decree on the preaching and teaching of the Bible. The first draft of the decree was the object of long discussions, and the last chapter gave a description of the ideal preacher, who is to be guided by love of the truth and fidelity to Scripture. Was this text thought too spiritual for inclusion in a decree on discipline? As it was not included, was it widely known?
Had Montfort heard about it? All that he says about "preaching with the inspiration of an apostle" in RM might have been inspired by this text. Even the equivalent of what he says about gentleness RM 65 can be found in it. And the passage about the servants of the Virgin Mary who "bay like your watchdogs" in PM 12 closely resembles the exhortation in the draft of the decree: "In order not to appear as if they were dumb dogs that cannot bark Isa and connive with the wolves, let them teach the truth and also refute the heresies.
They begin their sermons with a promise to explain Scripture, but the purpose of what they say afterwards is to delight the ears and minds of their audience with elegant turns of phrase and lofty-sounding ideas. They thus deprive the people of solid nourishment and leave them in ignorance of the science of salvation. Such so-called preachers are all the more to blame for neglecting Scripture as, unlike any other source, its wealth is inexhaustible.
This thick manuscript contains a large number of plans of sermons and lectures, but it does not give the texts of the actual sermons; it is, however, revealing of the ideas and of the probable content of his preaching.
Montfort worked out his plans and summaries on the basis of a collection of sermons commercially available in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. These sermons gave many quotations from Scripture and the Church Fathers. Clearly, they were not homilies and had no bearings on the texts used in the liturgy.
This is what Montfort did. He did not read Scripture for its own sake but geared it to his apostolic activity. As shown by the "order of sermons" for missions and retreats, which also gives the sermon-matter LS , his activity was governed by his concern for teaching, and this did not foster a desire to read Scripture for its own sake.
Having said that, Scripture remained the basis of his preaching, and it runs through his Book of Sermons together with comments by the Church Fathers. Unanimous consent of the Fathers. Naturally enough, the council took the view opposite to that of the Reformation on the subject of interpreting Scripture. The Protestant view is that each Christian can and may read and interpret Holy Scripture freely without reference to the Church or her teaching.
The council took the view that the faith community that is the Church has a part to play when it comes to the reading of Scripture by believers.
In order to keep "certain rebellious minds" within limits, the council decided that no one was to "rely on his own judgment and interpret Scripture contrary to the view that our Holy Mother the Church has held in the past and is holding now, and no one is to interpret Holy Scripture against the unanimous consent of the Fathers. The latter point was to become a rule for Catholic exegetes.
They did not abandon the headspring to follow the course of the streams; they drew on Scripture for their devastating arguments that destroyed the heresies, and for the heavenly food that they gave to the Church for her nourishment. In any case, he shares the views it expresses. He, too, turns to Scripture frequently in order to defeat heresy and draws on it as on a storehouse of arguments.
But he does not confine himself to Scripture. For him, as for the council, the Spirit promised to the Church also speaks through Tradition, "through the Fathers of the Church" TD Whenever he wants to establish some point of doctrine on a solid basis to refute the freethinkers, he resorts to Scripture and the Church Fathers cf. TD 25, 26, 32, 40, 41, 75, 93, 94, , , , , , , This means that he had carefully read the books themselves or collections of quotations; he may have done this at Saint-Sulpice after he had been given the job of "looking after the library.
This triggered off a controversy between the "critics" and those in favor of traditional exegesis, who relied mainly on the Church Fathers. The controversy centered, however, around Richard Simon and Bossuet, and it turned out to be an uneven contest.
Bossuet was then at the apex of his career and was very influential. Richard Simon had to fight him single-handedly, although a letter from Bossuet mentions "a cabal of false critics headed by him [Simon] whose purpose is to destroy the authority of the Church Fathers and of the decisions of the Church.
Right from the preface, Bossuet attacks Simon violently: "We must no longer allow the new critics to attack the doctrine of the Fathers and the tradition of the churches. What he is learning very well is how to esteem the heretics and to run down all the Church Fathers without exception, even those he pretends to praise.
The controversy eventually spread to the general public. We can safely assume that the stir was still greater in theological circles. All who were interested in the Bible must have followed the controversy closely. Simon was censured by doctors in theology and professors from the Sorbonne. The controversy may have been kept out of the classes held there, but it must have had some effect on the teaching.
As the theologians teaching at the Sorbonne did not deviate from scholastic theology, they must have given a cool reception to those whom Bossuet described as the "new critics. When he was studying theology, or at any rate as a young priest, Montfort must have heard echoes of the controversy.
In September , when the ordinance of Cardinal de Noailles became public, he may have been in Paris looking after his sister Guyonne-Jeanne. Later on, at the "Little Seminary" of Saint-Sulpice, he may have attended the evening tutorials bearing on the lectures given during the day. His director, Fr.
Leschassier, was reportedly "dean of the doctors at the Sorbonne. Should we repeat what Le Crom said, "From his lonely retreat Montfort was following the debates"?
Montfort applied it to the proud and self-important adversaries of "the devotion" he was promoting TD , , , , He puts critics into the category of "evil men" TD and "worldlings" TD When he uses it the word is synonymous with "proud scholars" TD 26, 65, 93 and "haughty" TD , "people of independent and self-satisfied minds" TD 26, 93, Montfort appears to side with Bossuet, who wrote in , "Nothing is so contrary to the spirit of the early Christians as the spirit of modern critics.
Who was right? The author remained nameless, but it was attributed to Jacques-Joseph Duguet, and it may throw some light on the question. The book, obviously, did not influence Montfort, but it gives principles that may help to explain his use of Scripture.
Duguet maintains that we "always begin by establishing the literal meaning" p. But he strongly recommends looking for a second meaning, which he calls prophetic, that is to say, Christological, which gives unity and consistence to the whole of Scripture. Right from the first page, the principle, for its understanding is clearly set out: "Jesus Christ is the end of the law. He illustrates it with a comparison of a lute or zither, which he borrowed from Saint Augustine and which de Sacy23 had used, and a comparison of the parable.
Not every part of a lute produces harmonious sounds, but each of them is necessary for their production. According to Saint Augustine, it is the same for Scripture. The whole of it resounds with the name and mysteries of Jesus Christ, though not each individual part does. We cannot expect each part to resound, but they all play a part in the overall effect"24 pp. After all, this was an intelligent way to repeat the basic principle of the exegesis of the Church Fathers.
In the Middle Ages the traditional doctrine of the Church Fathers had been set out in the theory of the four meanings: Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia. The other three senses are derived from it and help to understand the spiritual meaning.
The allegorical sense reveals the hidden mystery of history, its saving dimension. The moral sense is the sense that Scripture has with reference to the spiritual life of Christians. In 1 Cor Saint Paul speaks of the time that Israel spent in the desert and says, "These events happened as warnings to us not to set our desires on evil things as they did.
But the biblical passage giving an account of the events takes on a paraenetic meaning26 for us. The term used nowadays would be hermeneutics, or the meaning of the text as applied to us, in contrast to exegesis, which is concerned with the meaning of the text at the time of writing. It was on this typological sense that spiritual writers, including Montfort, preferred to concentrate.
Finally, anagogy opens vistas on the future through hope. This typological interpretation flows directly from the Christ-centeredness of Revelation. Christ makes it possible to interpret the whole of Scripture in that way. In the late seventeenth century, exegesis was already largely concerned with the spiritual meaning of Scripture. For the mystics link their experience to the Word of God, by which they do not necessarily mean the biblical word.
According to Saint John of the Cross, "The Father has uttered only one word, and this word was his Son; he still utters it in eternal silence, and it is in silence that the soul should listen to it. For this access to God is equivalent to an access to the Wisdom of God, Wisdom that ruled over the mysteries of salvation and their account in the Bible.
For John of the Cross, the Cross of Jesus is where all the Wisdom of God is hidden, and Montfort would have agreed with him when he wrote: "The soul really desirous of Wisdom should first of all desire to enter more deeply into the mystery of the Cross, which is the way to life.
They interpret it spiritually and find in it the Spirit whom they experience in their loving encounter with God. Their hermeneutics are spiritual and inspired by love. They realize that Scripture is meant for them personally, and they read it to increase their love of God. Montfort was one of them. He was not an exegete but a spiritual writer. Though his knowledge of Scripture was extensive, his reading of it was not scholarly but spiritual.
This reading was part of his ardent quest for Wisdom. What mattered to him were not only the literal meaning of Scripture but the history of salvation that the text reveals and that is to be repeated today in terms of the discovery of Wisdom. It is Wisdom, whom he identifies with Christ, that he discerns, senses, and recognizes in mere hints throughout Scripture. His reading is therefore not only prophetic and Christological but fully mystical. He did not question that Esau, Jacob, and Rebecca really lived in the days of old or that Jacob foreshadows Christ, and Rebecca, Mary, but he also believed that the story was handed down to us only to help our progress in the spiritual life.
This is illustrated again by his reading of the Psalms in PM and by his reading of the Wisdom texts, which he construes as referring to Jesus and Mary throughout.
It must be fairly obvious that the spiritual interpretation of Scripture is rooted in lectio divina, which belongs to the patristic and monastic tradition. Lectio divina is essentially reading in the Spirit, which is different from exegesis and from hermeneutics proper; nor does it consist in using Scripture for theological or homiletic purposes. It is "reading Scripture peacefully for its own sake, making the necessary efforts to reflect on it, meditatio, and being thus led as if naturally to prayer, oratio.
Let us not dismiss mystical reading too hastily. It might tie in with the recent concern generated by the advances of the linguistic sciences, which have implications even for exegesis.
Reading has now come under close investigation. What happens in the act of reading? How does the reader relate to the text and secretly connive with it? In its very essence, it contains propositions, injunctions, and requires to be read in a particular way.
This is particularly true of the biblical text, which can be called Scripture, insofar as it is a life-giving text that therefore requires to be read in faith in order to lead to a personal commitment and an increase in life. In other words, the Bible is not just a text. Through it we hear the voice of Another. It is a living Word, an offer of dialogue.
If I read it properly, I cannot but be challenged by the Word. If the dialogue part of it is left out, then the explanation of the Bible is incomplete. Should not the metalanguage of the believing exegete aim at preserving the dialogic role of the biblical text so that what is said about a biblical text makes it possible to hear the Word of the Spouse, the living word of a loving God?
In this sense, should not the literal meaning, the meaning as expressed at the time of writing, take on a spiritual, mystical meaning relevant to our present-day relationship with God? To his friend, who was reproaching him for his conduct and his ways, Montfort "showed his New Testament" Blain, p. Did he always carry it around with him, as Fr. Tronson, whom he had known at Saint-Sulpice, had recommended? In his apostolate, the Bible as a book was part of the apparatus he used during his missions.
Besnard says that at Villiers-en-Plaine, in February , "he took the book of the Holy Bible, which was very well bound, and had it carried under the canopy to the local church where the mission began that day" V, It was a bold way to emphasize the "real presence" of the Word of God, which would be the subject of his preaching during the mission. During the procession, which took place on the occasion of the "renewal of the Baptismal promises" during the mission, he gave pride of place to the book of the Gospel, which was carried in solemnity by a deacon, then venerated by the faithful; he "knelt down before taking it, then rising held it against his chest and preached so eloquently that all his audience burst into tears" Grandet, The whole performance was designed to highlight the Word of God at the expense of the one preaching it.
It is, however, his spiritual writings that best reveal to what extent Montfort turned to the Word of God for his nourishment. Of all his books, this is the most biblical and the most faithful to the biblical text. He did not use Scripture just to support a doctrine he had put forward previously.
His starting point is the Book of Wisdom itself, which inspires the theological views he propounds and almost suggests the plan of his book. In this respect, Montfort is unique, as there are no other spiritual writers "who have based their teaching, as Montfort did, on this small Old Testament book written in Greek. Montfort keeps very close to the biblical text of the Book of Wisdom.
He does not refrain from quoting whole chapters34 from it; most importantly, he closely adheres to its internal development. The Book of Wisdom is generally divided into the main parts: chapters 1 to 6, chapters 7 to 9, and chapters 10 to 19, in accordance with the literary genre of the book.
The Book of Wisdom belongs to the Greek genre called eulogy or encomium, which is designed to "arouse admiration for a person and a desire to imitate him or to practice one of his particular virtues or qualities. Montfort follows this plan fairly closely and examines each of these points.
For in her there is a spirit that is intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, mobile, clear, unpolluted, distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, keen, irresistible, 23 beneficent, humane, steadfast, sure, free from anxiety, all-powerful, overseeing all, and penetrating through all spirits that are intelligent and pure and most subtle.
Compared with the light she is found to be superior, 30 for it is succeeded by the night, but against wisdom evil does not prevail. Responsorial Psalm. Psalms , , , Luke Isaiah Psalms , , 25, Matthew
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