§ 1. The sectarians are accustomed to teach that Scripture is most clear. Jacob Gualterius, in the Chronographic Tables,
century 1, chapter 4, reports that John Faye, minister of Aubenas, said in a sermon: “There is no craftsman who, provided that he knows how to read, does not understand the Gospel.” Jacob Martini, in the jubilee theses, thesis 91: “Refrain, therefore, you pontificians, and especially you Jesuits, from your most foul cuckooing, by which you not only cry out that the sacred Scriptures are obscure, difficult, and intricate, but also calumniate them as so ambiguous and tortuous that, flexible like a waxen nose, they furnish no certain, constant, and unmoved meaning; indeed, you blaspheme them as the hiding place of many errors, and those most grave.”
And thesis 92: “Admit the laity also to the reading of the sacred writings. Why do I say ‘admit’? Since they have not only been admitted by the Lord himself, but also invited to it and bound by certain commands, so that they cannot be kept from it except with the greatest sacrilege.”
It would be superfluous to enumerate the others. Of those who composed or assisted the jubilees in this year, Pareus and Sharp alone thought otherwise. In this year Pareus published his final work of abuse on the Apocalypse, for he called it his supreme sacred χαριστήριον, thank-offering. In it he acknowledges that the Apocalypse is difficult, first in the admonition: “That he leaves it to his sons as their private possession, especially because he perceived that he had not yet attained the height of its mysteries, and that he would not satisfy others when they had not satisfied him in many things; that he had sought out the judgments of interpreters more exactly.” He also asks pardon for things not investigated. He follows Clémanges, a man of suspect faith, falsely represented by the most suspect Luther. He treats obscurity in chapter 3 of the prolegomena. “Writing concerning the obscurity of the Apocalypse, Augustine says: ‘In this book, whose name is Apocalypse, many obscure things are said so that the reader’s mind may be exercised; and there are a few things in it from whose manifestation the rest may be investigated with labor, especially because it repeats the same things in many ways so as to appear to say different things, although upon investigation it is found to say these same things in different manners.’”
And Jerome: “In the Apocalypse a book sealed with seven seals is shown. If you give it to a man who knows letters so that he may read it, he will answer you: ‘I cannot; it is sealed.’” And afterward: “The Apocalypse of John has as many mysteries as words. I have said too little for the merit of the volume; all praise is inferior. Multiple meanings lie hidden in the individual words.”
It is certainly so. For both in all the rest of sacred Scripture and particularly in this one, the acuteness of the human mind, unless illuminated by the rays of the divine Spirit, is more blind in understanding it sufficiently than the eyes of owls are blind before the midday light. The causes of this obscurity, however, are not obscure.
First, the whole book is prophetic concerning future things. “Write,” says the angel, “the things which you have seen, the things which are, and the things which are to come.” Future things as future, because they do not yet exist in any sense, are either altogether unknown or, if foreknown, are conceived not so much by understanding as by hope.
Add that these future things are not announced in open words, nor defined by indications of times, places, and persons, but are revealed to Saint John to be written in direct enigmas of visions. There are indeed in the Scriptures many open visions presented to the eyes of the mind or body: how King Belshazzar saw a hand writing on the wall; Elisha saw fiery chariots around him; Moses saw the burning bush before him; Peter saw a sheet containing four-footed animals let down to the earth; Paul saw the Lord standing above him at night, and so forth. These lacked great difficulty. But there are other visions more direct, when images signifying some mystery are read to have been presented to the minds of sleeping or waking persons. Unless their mysteries were revealed, they would possess an obscurity incapable of being investigated by human inquiry. Of this kind were the dreams presented to Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar, and likewise the visions of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah, to which we rightly refer the apocalyptic visions. God, by a singular benefit, not only revealed the mysteries of those dreams to the dreamers but also willed them to be written for the understanding of all. But although he also disclosed the mysteries of the visions to his servants the prophets, he nevertheless left them hidden from all others—evidently so that profane human beings would always disdain matters so obscure, while the pious would be excited all the more by the very obscurity to investigate the divine mysteries.
And on page 18: “Although we can penetrate the understanding of all the mysteries of this book only with difficulty and scarcely at all, the difficulty ought not nevertheless to deter us from investigation.”
§ 2. Next, in chapter 4, when he treats of interpreters, he concludes that the Apocalypse has been understood by no one. His words on page 21 are: “Among our own men in the century just elapsed, no fewer theologians illustrious in learning applied their hand to this book. Yet in my judgment Henry Bullinger, the ecclesiastic of Zurich, surpassed them all; nearly following him were others: David Chytraeus, Alfonso Conrado of Mantua, Francis Lambert, Sebastian Meyer, Nicholas Collado, John Foxe, Benedict Aretius, Matthias Flacius Illyricus, Augustine Marlorat, Peter Artopoeus, Francis Junius, and Daniel Tossanus. And recently, in the new century: John Napier the Scot, Thomas Brightman the Englishman, Raphael Eglinus of Zürich, Conrad Graser the Frank, John Piscator, Matthias Hoë, Matthew Cottière the Frenchman, and others unknown to me.
“But to what end, you ask, so many of these? Evidently so that I may show what I undertook to show: that nothing of the authority of this book is diminished because it was objected that certain more distinguished theologians abstained from interpreting it.
“It would be too long to explain the manner of interpretation which each of them followed, and whether so many accomplished what they wished and ought to have accomplished; it would also be foreign to the present undertaking. Perhaps someone could affirm this one thing without injury to them all: that what Mark the Evangelist wrote concerning the woman in the Gospel subject to a flow of blood happened to this book—she suffered many things from physicians and was helped not at all but rather became worse; perhaps not so much through the physicians’ lack of skill as through the obstinacy of an incurable evil, whose cure indeed was reserved for the illustration of Christ’s glory.
“For while so many, each following the power and rationale of his own talent, brought forward such various things concerning these enigmatic visions—pious conjectures indeed, as I judge, but generally agreeing little with one another or corresponding little to the aim and mind of the Spirit—it happened that accumulated commentaries upon this book are extant, not one of which fails to promise a new light. Its obscurity, however, not only has been little diminished but in some places has been enveloped in denser darkness. For some accommodate the enigmas of Revelation to the history of the ancient people; others apply them in different ways to the continuous course of the new Church; others, searching in each particular as though for gold beneath every stone, as the saying is, fashioned mystical senses for themselves; others converted everything into tropologies and moral allegories; others, as though from the cave of Apollo, attempted by divinatory investigation to draw from it foreknowledge of future things even beyond what it is lawful for human beings to know. In so great a number you will scarcely see two or three agree—a thing commonly said of chronologists. This confusion surely indicates that the difficulty of the book has not yet been exhausted by so great a variety of interpreters, but rather increased and entangled—not so much through the culpable ignorance of the interpreters as through the unsearchable
wisdom of the prophecy, whose full revelation has without doubt been reserved for the manifestation of Christ himself, the heavenly judge.”
These things are said by the man who otherwise, in earlier writings, vauntingly proclaimed the facility and perspicuity of Scripture. Sharp also brought forward eight causes of difficulty in controversy 7, column 72: “We concede, however, that many things in Scripture are obscure with respect to us, because God wished this to occur for the following causes. First, so that he might excite us to diligent reading, meditation, searching, and comparison of Scripture, and lest we be sluggish in searching the mysteries of our salvation. 2. So that we may be assiduous in prayers, seeking God’s aid and the light of the Holy Spirit for understanding them. 3. So that he might remove weariness from us, because we more frequently weary of easy things. 4. So that truth may be held by us at a greater price, since τὰ καλὰ χαλεπά, noble things are difficult. 5. So that he might tame our arrogance and convict our ignorance, since we sometimes glory and triumph greatly concerning our knowledge and our very selves. 6. So that the holy mysteries might be so many gems for the holy and not be prostituted indiscriminately to swine. 7. So that he might accustom us to a certain inward holiness of thoughts; for those who bring impure minds to the reading of Scripture lose their oil and labor.”
§ 3. If the opinion of these προμάχων, champions among the Jubilarians, is upheld, the vote of the others, as though they merely went on foot, will be contemned, and their grandiloquence and trappings will fall before the people. For Sharp at last returns to the question whether Scripture is so perspicuous that the people can read it usefully and controversies can be decided from it. The same Sharp confesses that the things necessary for salvation are clear and that very many things not necessary are obscure. The same man in column 71 says: “The cause why certain things appear obscure to us is that we are not content with the things proposed in the Scriptures, but investigate certain things more curiously than is proper.” But I shall also explain this part in a few words.
First proposition. Sacred Scripture is most clear in many things and does not need exposition if it is considered absolutely and cursorily; in others it is most obscure, in whatever manner it is weighed. Its perspicuity is plain, as when it is said: “You will conceive in the womb and bear a son.” If you consider it cursorily, the meaning is clear; if you begin to dispute, you will entangle yourself in great difficulties. Concerning this difficulty of easy passages Luther says in Table Talk, chapter 1, folio 2: “In the Scriptures we scarcely know the A, B, C, and not yet rightly.” Folio 3: “The word of God is unsearchable; to search even a single word of sacred Scripture and draw it forth from the depth is altogether ἀδύνατον, impossible. I deny that the learned and theologians can do it, even if they wish it most greatly. For because they are words of the Holy Spirit, Christians newly born in Christ possess only first fruits, not tithes. I have sometimes wished to meditate upon the Decalogue, and when I considered those first words, ‘I am the Lord your God,’ I began to hesitate over that first pronoun, ‘I’; and I cannot yet rightly understand this ‘I.’”
But concerning Scripture universally, on 16 February 1546, as Aurifaber reports, he wrote those things which stop the mouths of all preachers:
-
“No one can understand Virgil in the Eclogues unless he has been a shepherd for five years.
-
“No one can understand Virgil in the Georgics unless he has been a farmer for five years.
-
“No one understands Cicero completely in the Letters—so I declare—unless he has been engaged for twenty years in some distinguished state.
-
“Let no one suppose that he has sufficiently tasted the sacred Scriptures unless for a hundred years he has governed churches with the prophets, such as Elijah and Elisha, John the Baptist, and the apostles.
Attempt not this divine Aeneid;
But bowed down, adore its footprints.”
Scripture is therefore difficult.
Second proposition. Scripture, even in those things which are necessary for salvation, both needs interpretation and is obscure in many things. I do not speak of obscurity which exists by nature, but of that which pertains to us, for something is said to be obscure to someone not absolutely but comparatively. There is no need of proof. The whole world, even that part of the world which glories in the perspicuity and understanding of Scripture, experiences it as difficult. Therefore all draw it into such various senses, and from it so many heresies are forged—not through a defect of Scripture, but through the ignorance and malice of human beings. For, with a very few exceptions, all heresiarchs have been accustomed to cloak their errors in the words of Scripture. Those who glory in their understanding of its clarity strike against the articles of faith, against the foundation, and overturn Scripture. Accordingly, the wretched people are ensnared in endless polemics when no certain form of exposition is handed down, and when there are such contrary senses concerning the meaning of Scripture, whose words all sound forth: senses concerning the person of Christ, concerning God, justice, the sacraments, and election, all of which are necessary for salvation.
Next, in the Church there is the gift of interpretation and the office of teaching in schools and the church, not only for expounding abstruse questions which are not necessary for salvation, but especially for those which are required for salvation. Thus Sibrandus, book 4 of On the Principles of Christian Dogmas; the disputants at Regensburg and others acknowledge that these offices are necessary.
Third, a thing concerning which there are the greatest and most pernicious controversies, even among learned human beings, is not by its nature most clear in its own light. But concerning the meaning of Scripture, which contains dogmas of faith necessary for salvation, there are almost as many controversies as heads. Therefore that meaning is not by nature most clear. Indeed, this one matter weakens the authority of the sacred writings among most people, for when they seek not the words but the true and genuine meaning of the sacred writings, they fall into conflicting opinions and can obtain the authentic meaning by no reasoning. For all sectarians, without exception, flee to this: they say that they are certain concerning the meaning from private impulse. If that impulse were one and concordant in all, perhaps they would persuade; but now, since it is most diverse, it cannot happen that all except one do not err and deceive.
They object: “The word is neither hidden nor remote from us, but is in our mouth and heart,” Romans 10:8. “It is a lamp to the feet,” Psalm 118, and so forth; “a shining lamp,” 2 Peter 1:19. It is clear, not hidden, 2 Corinthians 4:2. We are commanded to search it, John 5:39 and elsewhere. The Fathers use the Scriptures; the primitive Church understood them without commentaries. If the Holy Spirit wrote obscurely, he wrote in vain.
Indeed, the faithful understand all things necessary for salvation, John 10:17. These things are scattered through the jubilees, and Sharp gathered them into one in column 74. But the error common to all sectarians is that they understand Scripture simply and without the sense of the Church and the interpretation of the Doctors. The word of God is not hidden because certain parts of it need no exposition, while others are explained to us by the Church, so that if one wishes to learn, it is not hidden. It is a lamp, but
when it is lit—that is, when it diffuses the rays of the true meaning. We are commanded to search the Scriptures because their profundity is not everywhere obvious. The Fathers use the Scriptures to establish sacred dogmas, and they expound them or set them forth as explained by more ancient persons. Did the primitive Church understand the Scriptures without exposition? Indeed, not even the apostles, already faithful and familiar with Christ, did so; for Christ expounded them to them. So far were they from understanding that they did not know that Christ had to suffer and so enter into his glory, Luke 24:25.
Next, when the apostles expounded the Scriptures and refuted the Jews, did they not expound the faith and those things which were necessary for salvation? And Apollos, Acts 18:24, was mighty in the Scriptures, but was taught the way of the Lord more diligently by Aquila and Priscilla. Nor did he understand all things by himself, but learned from others that there was another baptism besides John’s baptism, which was given in water alone. But if the primitive Church understood the Scriptures without an interpreter, and the Church which followed afterward did so as well, there was no need of so many interpreters—indeed, there would not be even now—although the whole world today groans beneath the commentaries of the innovators. Concerning the single article of justification there are twenty conflicting opinions, and Sharp resolves this by nothing other than a manifest lie when he says: “Among the Reformed there is great agreement concerning this article, as concerning the others.”
From these things I conclude that the true meaning of Scripture must be sought from Scripture and from the true interpretation of the Church. Certainly it was thus formerly in the Israelite Church. For since the ancient Hebrews wrote without vowel points, they learned from their teachers with great labor the method of reading and of understanding the things which depended upon it. A perpetual tradition therefore accompanied Scripture, in which pronunciation and the substitution of vowels were contained. Accordingly, just as no point was to be supplied unless it agreed with the mind of the Holy Spirit, so now no interpretation is to be admitted unless it is from him.
§ 4. Finally, no end of controversies and no concord can ever be hoped for when interpretation is relegated to each person’s private spirit. For how will enemies be convinced or the doubtful instructed if nothing other is cried out from the chairs than certainty concerning the meaning of Scripture from a private impulse of the Holy Spirit?