Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/775

 EXEGESIS

697

EXEGESIS

Christ., II, xi; cf. xvi) warns us that "the knowledge of languages is the great remedy against unknown signs. Men of the Latin tongue need two others for a thor- ough knowledge of the Divine Scriptures, viz. the Hebrew and the (ireek, so that recourse may be had to the older copies, if the infinite variety of the Latin translators occasions any doubt." Pope Leo XIII, in the Encyclical " Providentissinius Deus", agrees with the great African Doctor in urging the study of the sacred languages. "It is mo.st proper", he writes, " that professors of Sacred Scripture and theologians should master those tongues in which the Sacred Books were originally written; and it would be well that church students also should cultivate them, more especially those who aspire to academic degrees. And endeavours should be made to establish in all academic institutions — as has already been laudably done in many — chairs of the other ancient languages, espe- cially the Semitic, and of other subjects connected therewith, for the benefit principally of those who are intended to profess sacred literature." Nor can it be urged that for the Catholic interpreter the Vulgate is the authentic text, which can be understood by any Latin scholar. The pontiff considers this exception in the Encyclical already quoted: "Although the mean- ing of the Hebrew and Greek is substantially rendered by the Vulgate, nevertheless wherever there may be ambiguity or want of clearness, the 'examination of older tongues,' to quote St. Augustine, will be useful and advantageous." Recourse to the original text is considered the only scholarly approach to any great work of literature. A translation is never a perfect reproduction of the original; no language can fully express the thoughts conveyed in another tongue, no tran.slator is capable of seizing the exact shades of all the truths contained in any work, and in case of Bibli- cal versions, we have often good reason for doubt as to the genuineness of their readings.

(b) Scriptural Language. — The Scriptural language presents several difficulties peculiar to itself. First, the Bible is not written by one author, but presents in almost every liook the style of a different writer. Sec- ondly, the Bible was not written at a single period ; the Old Testament covers the time between Moses and the last Old-Testament writer, i. e. more than one thou- sand years, so that many words must have changed their meaning during this interval. Thirdly, the Bibli- cal Greek is not the classical language of the Greek authors with whom we are acquamted; up to about fifteen years ago, Biblical scholars used to speak about New-Testament Greek, they compiled New-Testament lexicons, and wrote New-Testament grammars. The discovery of the Egj^ptian papyri and other literary re- mains has broken down this wall of separation between the language of the New Testament and that of the time in which it was written ; with regard to this point, our present time may be considered as a period of transition, leading up to the composition of lexicons and grammars that will rightly express the relation of the Biblical Greek to the Greek employed in profane writings. Fourthly, the Bible deals with the greatest variety of topics, requiring a corresponding variety of vocabulary; moreover, its expressions are often fig- urative, and therefore subject to more frequent changes of meaning than the language of profane writers. How are we to become acquainted with the Scriptural language in spite of the foregoing difficulties? St. Augu.stine (De doctr. christ., II, ix S(|q.) suggests the continual reading of the Bible as the first remedy, so that we may acijuire "a familiarity with the lan- guage of the Scriptures". He adds to this a careful comparing of the Bible text with the language of the ancient versions, a process calculated to remove some of the native ambiguities of the original text. \ third help is found, according to the same great Doctor, in the diligent reading of the works of the Fathers, since many of them formed their style by a constant reading

of Holy Scripture (loc.cit., II, xiii, xiv). Nor must we omit to study the writings of Philo and Josephus, the contemporaries of the Apostles and the historians of their nation. They are helpful illustrations of the cul- tured language of the Apostolic time. The study of the etymology of the sacred languages is another means of becoming acquainted with the languages themselves. For a proper imderstanding of the ety- mology of Hebrew words, the knowledge of the cog- nate languages is requLsite ; but here it must be kept in mind that many derivatives have a meaning quite different from the signification of their respective radicals, so that an argument based on etymology alone is open to suspicion.

(ii) Sense of the Literary Expression. — After the foregoing rules have aided the interpreter to know the various significations of the words of the sacred text, he must next endeavour to investigate in what precise sense the inspired writer employed his expressions. He will be assisted in this study by attending to the subject-matter of the book or chapter, to its occasion and purpose, to the grammatical and logical context, and to the parallel passages. Whatever meaning of the literary expressions is not in keeping with the sub- ject-matter of the book, cannot be the sense in which the writer employed it. The same criterion directs us in the choice of any particular shade of meaning and in the limitation of its extent. The subject-matter of the Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians, e. g., shows in what sense St. Paul used the expressions law and works of the law; the sense of the expressions spirit of God, wisdom arul understanding, which occur in E.X., xxxi, 3, must be determined in the same way. The occasion and purpose of a book or of a passage will often determine whether certain expressions must be taken in their proper or figurative sen.se, whether in a limited or an imlimited extent, .\ttention to this point will aid us in explaining aright such passages as John, vi, 53 sqq.; Matt., x, 5; Heb., i, 5, 7; etc. Thus we shall understand the first of these passages of the real flesh and blood of Christ, not of their figure ; we shall see the true import of Christ's command con- tained in the second passage, " Go ye not into the way of the Gentiles, and into the city of the Samaritans enter ye not"; again, we shall appreciate the full weight of the theological argimient in favour of the eternal generation of the Son as stated in the third passage, contained in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

The context is the third aid in determining the pre- cise sense in which each single word is used by the writer. We need not insist on the necessity of explain- ing an expression in accordance with its grammatical environment. The commentator must make sure of the grammatical connexion of an expression, so as not to do violence to the rules of inflection or of sj-ntax. The so-called poetical parallelism may be considered as constituting part of grammar taken in a wider sense. But the logical context, too, requires attention; a commentator must not explain any expression in such a sense as to make the author contradict himself, being careful to assign to each word a meaning th;it will best agree with the thought of the sentence, of the chapter, and even of the book. Still, it must not be overlooked that the context is sometimes psychological ratherthan logical; in lyric poetrj', in the words of the Prophets, or in animated dialogues, thoughts and sentiments are at times brought into juxtaposition, the logical con- nexion of which is not apparent. Finally, there Ls a so-called optical context which is found in the visions of the Prophets. The inspireil seer may perceive grouped together in the same vision events which are widely separated from each other in t ime and space.

The so-called real or verbal ])arallelisms will aid the commentator in tietermining the precise sense in which the inspired writer employeii his words. In case of verbal parallelism, or in the recurrence of the same literary expressions in different parts of the in-