II. On Books Which Act Perversely Concerning the Inspiration of Sacred Scripture

Apostolic See

75. By the second part of article 11, to recall it, works are reprobated "in which the concept of the inspiration of Sacred Scripture is perverted, or its extension is too much narrowed."

The double vice, how it is committed

1. Therefore books are condemned in which either the formal reason of inspiration is adulterated, or its material breadth is lessened.

But again it is necessary that such a place be given to these vices that inspiration can be placed among the subjects of the book and that the perverse notion of inspiration or the excessive narrowing be persuaded to the reader.

But works are not condemned which, by the contrary vice, amplify the parts of inspiration more than is just.

Norm of judging

2. But which books are to be thought to pervert inspiration or to lessen it too much, so that for that reason they are proscribed, this is to be judged from the certain and sufficiently open doctrine of the Church, not from that which, perhaps undeservedly, is still controverted among Catholics. The norm will especially be the Encyclical Providentissimus Deus of Leo XIII, November 18, 1893, in those of its points which are sufficiently agreed upon by all; and the decrees of the Holy See, insofar as directly or indirectly they have the force of law.

Cases of each kind

Moreover, he is judged to pervert the concept of inspiration:

a) who holds it merely as a subsequent approval;¹

b) who professes that an inspired place is necessarily immune only from errors in faith or morals, so that it could contain, for example, a historical error, which redounds upon the sacred writers.

He lessens its breadth too much who has dared "to narrow inspiration to only some parts of Scripture," while God so "roused and moved" men (whom he was inspiring), so "assisted them while writing, that they conceived all those things and only those things which he himself ordered ... wished to write them ... expressed them."

Decrees given after the Encyclical

3. Come now: to the Encyclical Providentissimus, two responses of the Pontifical Commission concerning the biblical matter were added, which the Supreme Pontiff approved and ordered to be made public. Both pertain to our matter.

The first, February 13, 1905, denied that it is lawful for a Catholic exegete, in order to solve difficulties, to have recourse to tacit or implicit citations, except in a case in which, with the sense and judgment of the Church preserved, it is proved by solid arguments: 1° that the hagiographer truly cites the sayings or documents of another; and 2° that he neither approves nor makes the same his own, so that he is judged by right not to speak in his own name.

The other, June 23, 1905, repudiated narratives only apparently historical, "except, nevertheless, in a case, not easily nor rashly to be admitted, in which, the sense of the Church not resisting and her judgment being preserved, it is proved by solid arguments that the hagiographer wished not to hand down true and properly so-called history, but, under the appearance and form of history, to propose a parable, allegory, or some sense removed from the proper literal or historical signification of the words."

¹ Vatican Council, session 3, chapter 2.