Viviano SensesofScripture

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The Senses of Scriptureby Pauline A. Viviano, PhD

The Church has a rich tradition o interpreting Sacred

Scripture. That tradition had begun already in the

New Testament, as the Old Testament was inter-

preted in relationship to Christ, and it was urther devel-

oped by the early Church Fathers and systematized in the

medieval period. Though modern and contemporary biblical

scholarship both have adopted new means and new aids to

exegesis as encouraged by Pope Pius XII, the oundation

laid by the early Church Fathers and the medieval Church

continues to support subsequent inquiries into the mean-

ing o the biblical text. The early Church Fathers were not

bound to one meaning o the text but rather allowed the

biblical text to speak its message in various ways. These

various ways correspond to the levels o meaning in a text;

these levels o meaning we call the senses o Scripture.

There are two basic senses o Scripture: the literal sense and

the spiritual sense. The literal sense reers to the sense o

the words themselves; it is that which has been expressed

directly by the inspired human authors. It has been vari-

ously described as the verbal or grammatical sense, the plain

sense, the sense the human author intended, the sense the

divine author intended, the historical sense, and even theobvious sense. Underlying these various descriptions is the

notion that the literal sense is the meaning conveyed by

the words o Scripture. The literal sense is discovered

by careul and attentive study o the biblical text using

all interpretive tools available, such as grammatical aids,

archaeological evidence, historical and literary analyses,

sociological and anthropological studies, and whatever else

can be called upon to expand ones knowledge o the his-

torical and literary context o the text and thereby gain a

better understanding o the literal sense o the biblical text.

The importance o the literal sense was long ago under-scored by St. Thomas Aquinas in his recognition that all

the senses are ounded on onethe literalrom which

alone can any argument be drawn, and not rom those

Pope Pius XII, Divino Afante Spiritu (94), no. , trans. NationalCatholic Welare Conerence, in The Bible Documents: A Parish Resource(Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 00), .

Pontifcal Biblical Commission, The Interpretation o the Bible in theChurch (99), no. , in The Bible Documents, 6.

Catechism o the Catholic Church (nd ed.) (Washington, DC: LibreriaEditrice VaticanaUnited States Conerence o Catholic Bishops, 000),no. 6.

intended in allegory.4 This importance was reiterated in

Pope Pius XIIs exhortation to Catholic biblical scholars:

let the Catholic exegete undertake the task, o all those

imposed on him the greatest, that namely o discovering

and expounding the genuine meaning o the Sacred Books.

In the perormance o this task let the interpreters bear in

mind that their oremost and greatest endeavor should be

to discern and deine clearly that sense o the biblical words

which is called literal.

The spiritual sense reers to when what is signiied by the

words o a text, the literal sense, also has a urther signii-

cation.6 As it developed within Christianity, the spiritual

sense pertained to the meaning expressed by the biblical

texts when read under the inluence o the Holy Spirit, in

the context o the paschal mystery o Christ and o the new

lie which lows rom it. Spiritual interpretation o the

Old Testament was especially prominent or the Church

Fathers, or the Old Testament was believed to contain

Gods preparation or his Son. The early Church Fathers

used many terms to reer to the spiritual meaning o the

text, such as allegorical sense, mystery or mystical sense,

and theoria.

The lines between these various terms areblurred, and their meanings oten overlap. Indeed, at

times these terms were used interchangeably by the early

Church Fathers.

By the medieval period, three distinct spiritual senses

emerged: the allegorical sense (which included typology),

the tropological or moral sense, and the anagogic or

uture sense.

The allegorical sense reers to the meaning that is hidden

beneath the surace o the text. The search or the allegori-

cal meaning o texts inds its origin in the Greek world,especially in Platonic philosophy as it was understood in the

4 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans. English Dominicans(New York: Christian Classics, 9), I, , 0, ad. .

Pope Pius XII, Divino Afante Spiritu, no. .6 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, , 0. Pontifcal Biblical Commission, The Interpretation o the Bible in the

Church, no. . From Raymond Brown, The Sensus Plenior o Sacred Scripture (Balti-

more, MD: St. Marys University, 9), 46: Sometimes theoria is usedin the same sense as allegory, but in the Antiochene school it specifcallyreers to the perception o the uture which a prophet enjoys throughthe medium o the present circumstances which he is describing.


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Hellenistic period. Allegorical interpretation was employed

to make sense o the Greek myths in which the gods oten

appeared crude and their behavior immoral. Underlying

the allegorical method is the notion that the writers o an

earlier age composed their works in a veiled language. They

wrote one thing but intended another. In order to hold on

to the stories o old, and yet to allow these stories to speak

to a new age, it is necessary to ind a meaning beyond whatthe written word said. In order to uncover the true mean-

ing o those ancient myths, it is necessary to treat the writ-

ten word as a symbol or a deeper reality; it is necessary to

ind a deeper meaning below the surace or literal meaning

o the text. By means o allegorical interpretation, truth is

unveiled; where there was mystery now stands revelation.

Like the ancient Greek myths, many passages in the Jewish

Scriptures are obscure or seemingly inconsistent, or the con-

tent o the passage is seen as unacceptable when judged by

the standards o a later age. Use o the allegorical method to

interpret the Bible in the early Church could explain awayits inconsistencies, the questionable behavior o its charac-

ters, and its crudeness. The greatest proponent o allegorical

method o interpretation o the Jewish Scriptures was Philo

o Alexandria. In his search or the deeper signiicance o

the text, Philo identiied biblical characters with abstract

virtues or with the soul in its journey through lie. Names,

numbers, measurements, and seemingly mundane details

were explored or their hidden meaning and given cosmic

or mystical signiicance.9 The allegorical method o Philo o

Alexandria was inluential in the development o Christian

allegorical interpretation.

Allegorical interpretation is already ound in the New

Testament. For example, Paul in the Epistle to the

Galatians says,

For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one

by the slave woman and the other by a reeborn

woman. The son o the slave woman was born

naturally, the son o the reeborn through a prom-

ise. Now this is an allegory. These women are two

covenants. One was rom Mount Sinai, bearing

children or slavery; this is Hagar. . . . But the

Jerusalem above is reeborn, and she is our mother.

(Gal 4:-6)

The allegorical method o interpretation dominated in the

early Church rom the time o Clement o Alexandria (0

to / CE) through the ourth century. Origen, living

in the rd century CE, is perhaps the greatest representative

o this kind o interpretation.

9 James L. Kugel, Early Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia: WestminsterPress, 96), .

Though today scholars make a distinction between allegori-

cal and typological interpretation, such a distinction was not

made in the early Church. The early Church Fathers spoke

o types, but they did not distinguish between allegory

and typology as scholars have recently begun to do. What

is distinctive to typology is the notion that what preceded

Christ was but a shadow o what was to come. Persons and

events o the Old Testament are understood to be typeso persons or events in the New Testament, which are then

antitypes. The Old Testament, interpreted typologically,

is said to anticipate or to oreshadow events to come. The

crossing o the Red Sea is seen as a type o Baptism; Isaac

carrying the wood or his sacriice in Genesis is seen as a

type o Jesus carrying his cross to Calvary. Some representa-

tives o typological interpretation are Diodorus o Tarsus, St.

John Chrysostom, and Theodore o Mopsuestia. Typology is

ound in the exegetical work o St. Augustine and St. Jerome

alongside allegorical interpretation.

Allegorical interpretation gave the early exegetes a wayto ind meaning in the Bible, including its obscure and

unseemly passages; but because o this methods ocus on

the deeper spiritual meaning o a text, the literal sense

became viewed as insigniicant. Typological interpretation,

by contrast, maintained a greater respect or the literal

sense because this method o interpretation is more irmly

grounded in the literal sense o the text. Both typology

and allegory, however, went beyond the literal sense o the

text in the early Church. For typologists the written word

pointed beyond itsel; or allegorists the written word stood

or something else.

The other two spiritual senses, the tropological sense and

the anagogic sense, are deined in terms o their ocus. The

tropological sense is concerned with the moral lessons that

can be drawn rom the biblical text. I events in Israels past

were written down to instruct us ( Cor 0:), then we

can learn how we ought to live by paying careul attention

to the history o Israel, the words o the prophets, and the

exhortations ound in Israels wisdom traditionsindeed,

to the entire Bible. The anagogic sense represents a shit

in ocus to the uture, speciically to the end times or last

things. It looks to the goal o our journey through lie as we

are led up0 to our heavenly home.

The ourold senses o Scripturethe literal, allegorical,

moral (tropological), and anagogic senseswere irst pro-

posed by John Cassian (ca. 60-4). By way o example,

Cassian wrote, The one Jerusalem can be understood in

0 The Greek word anagoge means leading up.


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our dierent ways, in the historical sense as the city o the

Jews, in allegory as the Church o Christ, in anagoge as the

heavenly city o God which is the mother o us all (Gal

4:6), in the tropological sense as the human soul. St.

Augustine set orth a similar ourold division in De Genesi

ad litteram: In all the sacred books, we should consider

eternal truths that are taught, the acts that are narrated,

the uture events that are predicted, and the precepts orcounsels that are given (.).

The exegetes o the medieval period seem to have taken

these statements as programmatic or interpretation.

Though some spoke o as many as seven senses o Scripture,

it became commonplace to reer to the ourold senses o

Scripture. A simple poem attributed to Augustine o Dacia

captures the medieval commitment to the our senses o

Scripture: The letter teaches events; allegory what you

should believe; morality teaches what you should do, anagogy

what mark you should be aiming or. In the medieval

period there were some, such as Hugh o St. Victor and hisollowers, who leaned toward a more literal interpretation;

others, such as Bernard o Clairvaux, leaned toward a more

spiritual interpretation. More oten, though, these various

senses o Scripture were set side by side; and all o them

were seen as viable, even i very dierent, ways in which to

understand the biblical text.

The Reormation brought with it a dierent interpretive

ocus, as Luther took Pauls statement that we have been

justiied by aith (Rom :) as the key to understanding all

o Scripture. Luther and subsequent reormers moved away

rom allegorical interpretation, and the literal interpreta-tion o Scripture began to receive more emphasis. Within

Catholicism there was little change rom the interpretive

stance taken in the medieval period with its ourold senses

o Scripture. Moving into the Age o Enlightenment, reason

was enthroned as the ultimate criterion o knowledge, and

interpretive methods began to change. Authority and tradi-

tion were called into question, and scientiic method began

to dominate all ields o inquiry. The explosion o knowl-

edge that accompanied the emergence o science, coupled

with archaeological discoveries, raised critical questions

about the actual and scientiic accuracy o the Bible.

John Cassian, Conerences, trans. Colm Luibheid (New York: PaulistPress, 9), 60.

St. Augustine, The Literal Meaning o Genesis, trans. John HammondTaylor (New York: Newman Press, 9), 9.

Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses o Scripture, trans.Mark Sebanc (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 99), . The Latin textreads: Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, Moralis quid agas, quotendas anagogia (ootnote , p. ). It is ound in the Rotulus pugillarispublished in 06 by Augustine o Dacia.

The historical-critical method that emerged in the eighteenth

century has dominated the ield o biblical interpretation

since then, and it continues to inluence contemporary

biblical interpretation. The historical-critical method is

not one method; it employs several methods in an attempt

to interpret the Bible rom within its historical and liter-

ary context and in a search or the meaning intended by

the authors. The method attends to the history o the textand its ormation rom earlier oral and written sources; it

discusses its orms and its redaction. It enlists the aid o

many disciplines, such as linguistics, archaeology, sociology,

anthropology, literary theory, and comparative religions, to

try to determine the meaning o a passage in its historical

and literary context. Those using this method have chal-

lenged many presuppositions about the historical reliability

o the biblical text and the ormulation o doctrines that

are biblically based. As historical-critical method moved

into the academy and began to dominate in Protestant

seminaries, undamentalism arose to insist upon the

inerrancy o Scripture in every area o knowledge and tohold on to the undamentals o Christian aith as they had

been previously deined.

In Catholic circles in the early part o the twentieth cen-

tury, biblical scholars began to discuss the uller sense

(sensus plenior) o Scripture. The uller sense is deined as a

deeper meaning o the text, intended by God but not clearly

expressed by the human author.4 This uller sense is to be

ound when a later biblical author coners on an earlier text

a new meaning, such as Matthews use o Isaiah :4 (Mt

:) to reer to the virginal conception o Jesus; or when a

meaning is given to a biblical text by later doctrine or con-ciliar deinition, such as the deinition o original sin based

in Romans :-. The distinction between the uller

sense and the spiritual sense is diicult to maintain, but it

is said to stand between the literal sense and the spiritual

sense.6 The uller sense allows the literal meaning to stand

but maintains that the text acquired a new meaning ater

Christ. The uller sense o a text, though intended by God,

was not seen until the ullness o Revelation had been real-

ized in Christ.

The discussion o the uller sense continues, but it has been

largely eclipsed by the adoption o the historical-critical

method within Catholic circles in the middle o the twenti-

eth century. Pope Pius XII published Divino Alante Spiritu

in 94, authorizing the use o contemporary biblical

methods o interpretation:

4 Pontifcal Biblical Commission, The Interpretation o the Bible in theChurch,no. 4.

Pontifcal Biblical Commission, The Interpretation o the Bible in theChurch,no. 4.

6 Brown, The Sensus Plenior o Sacred Scripture, .


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As in our age, indeed new questions and

new diiculties are multiplied, so by Gods

avor, new means and aids to exegesis

are also provided. . . . Let the interpreter

then, with all care and without neglecting

any light derived rom recent research,

endeavor to determine the peculiar char-

acter and circumstances o the sacredwriter, the age in which he lived, the

sources written or oral to which he had

recourse and the orms o expression he

employed. (no. )

The position taken by Pope Pius XII was reairmed at

Vatican II in the document Dei Verbum and again in

The Interpretation o the Bible in the Church.

From the time o the early Church Fathers through the

medieval period, to the modern world, and now into the

contemporary age, biblical interpretation has grown and

developed, with each successive age applying the best othe hermeneutical principles o its time to determine the

meaning o Sacred Scripture. The language o senses o

Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum (Dogmatic Constitution on DivineRevelation), in The Basic Sixteen Documents: Vatican Council II: Constitu-

tions, Decrees, Declarations, ed. Austin Flannery (New York: CostelloPublishing Company, 996). See especially :-.

Hermeneutics is the science or art o interpretation. It can reer also tothe study o the principles that ground dierent methods o interpretation.

Scripture is not used by contemporary biblical scholars;

and though those using historical-critical method have

oten insisted that a text has only one meaning, there is a

growing recognition that there are multiple layers o mean-

ing in a text. Contemporary biblical scholars who employ

historical-critical methods stress what the text meant in its

historical and literary context, but with the Bible we are

dealing with a living text that continues to have meaningor the aith communities that hold it sacred. As such, we

must attend not only to what the text meant, but also to

what the text means or the believing community. We con-

tinue to move between the literal and spiritual senses o the

text as we struggle to appropriate what Gods Word has to

say to us today.

Pauline A. Viviano, PhD

Associate Proessor o Theology

Loyola University, Chicago

Handouts may be reproduced to use in promoting Catechetical Sunday. Copyright 00, United States Conerence o Catholic Bishops, Washington, D.C.All rights reserved.