Hl. 1. THE WORD, THE COVENANT, THE PROMISE

Abraham, Moses, and the Prophets

The Holy Scriptures remain the great source of Christianity, both dogmatically and spiritually. Theologians of patristic times, as well as of the Middle Ages, did not hesitate to even call it a source simply, a source as such. They believed that in it, and only in it, one can find all the inseparable elements of truth and life that make up Christianity. True, since the sixteenth century, when Protestant movements began to oppose the Bible to other data of Church Tradition, it was necessary to treat with some caution statements of this kind. It would be more correct to say that the source of Christianity is, of course, the Word of God, but the Word of God is the Bible and Tradition. Moreover, such a formulation is not an innovation: ancient Christianity always brought these two concepts together. But in order to preserve their original meaning, one must clearly realize that this rapprochement does not mean comparison, much less opposition.

Tradition and Scripture are not two independent sources that would complement each other from the outside. If we are inclined to think of the situation in this way, it is precisely because we have not escaped the unfortunate Protestant distinctions. For the ancient Christians, on the other hand, the Bible was so inseparable from Tradition that it formed a part of it—its basic element, its nucleus, if you will. But, on the other hand, the Bible would become incomprehensible if it were torn out of the living totality of the numerous data of tradition, preserved and transmitted by the always awake, always active consciousness of the Church. Indeed, it would then be cut off from the life of the very objects of which it speaks. This means that in the Catholic understanding, the Bible and Tradition are not the Bible plus some extraneous element, without which it would remain only incomplete. The point is that the Bible must be replaced, or rather maintained, in its proper atmosphere, in its living environment, in its original illumination. It is the Bible and nothing but the Bible, but it is the Bible in its entirety, not only in its letter, but also in the Spirit, its Author, who constantly enlivens its reading. Where, indeed, asked St. Augustine, is the Spirit of Christ to be found, if not in the Body of Christ? This means that the Word, once inspired by people who lived in the flesh, remains the Spirit and life in the Church, which is the living body of the Word of God manifested in the flesh. Thus, contrary to all too popular opinion, Church Tradition in no way undermines the exclusive significance of Holy Scripture, but, on the contrary, preserves all its value, precisely because it preserves its entire meaning.

This value of Scripture, not only the highest but also the only one, manifests itself with particular clarity as soon as we touch upon spiritual theology. Because in the Holy Scriptures all the truths of faith are directed directly to life. It is no accident that this is the case precisely where these truths are presented in their primary, fundamental, and, I would say, 'spring' form, the one to which we must constantly return if we want to drink directly from the spring. The fact is that Christian truth, the truth of Revelation, is not the same as any other. It is a truth revealed just enough for us to live, and to live the life that God has willed for us. No doubt it seems quite justified to investigate this truth in the abstract, in order to defend it more successfully, to understand it better, and finally, by the same means, to love it more. Nevertheless, it is impossible to remain true to its true outlines if one forgets the original intent that underlies Revelation. Consequently, the Holy Scriptures must remain for us, first of all, the place where we find Christian truth, expressed not for apologetic or dialectical purposes, but for the sake of that vital connection and those personal relations which God pleases to establish between man and Himself.

To establish such relations is inherent in the word. That is why the name of the Word of God belongs inseparably to Holy Scripture, although it can be extended to the entire Tradition as a whole. Indeed, there is nothing more characteristic of the Bible and, based on it, of the Jewish and then the Christian religion, than the concept of the Word of God. The primary belief of Jews and Christians is that God spoke to man, moreover, He does not cease to speak to him, and this is primarily through the inspired Scriptures. To delve into the meaning of this topic is the very first thing that must be done in order to understand both the Bible and Christian spirituality.

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In Scripture and in the Tradition that embraces it, the Word of God acquires a very special value and content inherent only to it. It is not that outside the Jewish and Christian religions there has never been a concept of divine words. On the contrary, this idea is the most widespread, the most common in the most primitive religions. But the comparison not only does not affect the uniqueness of the Biblical Word, it makes it possible to single it out with greater prominence.

Everywhere people had the feeling that they were entering into relations with the divinity, particularly through oracles. It would be difficult, for example, to ignore their significance in any more or less detailed and profound exposition of Greek religion. In the foreground, the Oracle of Delphi undoubtedly had much more influence on ancient thinkers than is usually thought. It is possible that the ancient Greeks themselves ascribed more to it than they should have. But these pious exaggerations themselves show the duration of the fascination that emanated from that sacred place on the Greek soul. And now, it is still difficult for a traveler to penetrate into the Delphic valley without experiencing an irresistible feeling of some divine presence ready to enter into communion with man. {}

And yet, what did the oracle of Apollo give to Greek thought (in particular, religious Greek thought)? Apparently, some general impression of common sense, of measured balance, gradually stood out from the answers to the very practical, rather base questions that were put to him. Flexibility in the wording, sufficient to ensure that the facts never contradict them, may have played a role. But apart from this more or less constant coloring, no unbroken line, no general view of the history of the people or of the fate of man has stood out from this heap of scattered predictions and prescriptions. And if something of this kind is sometimes depicted, then it is only too clear that the Pythia was influenced by certain groups, which, of course, did not contain anything supernatural. {}

Nevertheless, from the common sense we have already noted, combined with the atmosphere of the place, also already mentioned, the image of the god was gradually formed, which was finally expressed in the myth of Apollo, who is cleansed from the murder of the serpent Python. And it is undeniable that this image dominates the Greek ideal, the ideal which is glorified in the famous speech which Thucydides put into the mouth of Pericles. It is the image of the god of pure light, of harmony 'without any excesses', and in the depths of the god who says, 'Know thyself.' It is difficult to deny the religious beauty of this ideal. But it is also undeniable that as he rises and purifies, he separates himself from the personality of the Pythian Apollo. In the end, the latter is not so much revealed as dissolved in concepts and feelings that are valuable in themselves. It may remain their symbolic and poetic core. But their reality will no longer depend on the reality of his own existence. To tell the truth, on the contrary, with the rise and development of Greek rationalism, the Delphic god will become useless and unnecessary to the very extent that the very principles which he represented will triumph.

The analysis we have made will not be in vain if it enables us to grasp the sterility of the concept of the "divine word" contained in the oracles of primitive religions, and where their voices accompanied the most remarkable phenomenon of human progress: the miracle of ancient Greece. Neither about the formation of man, nor about the personality of God, the oracles revealed anything essential. If they rise above divination on particular questions, it is only to fall into the abstraction of commonplaces, which they in turn overcome only when, forgetting their god and the sayings attributed to him, they simply express the genius of a healthy and bright humanity.

But if we abandon primitive religion, and pass from the beginning to the end of the development of Hellenic culture, and deal with its last period, when decline and regeneration were inseparably intertwined, we shall at first get an entirely different impression. The 'sacred word' — 'hieros logos' — is already presented here as a heavenly revelation in the full sense of the expression. Here we have already left the realm of vague utterances and almost unenlightened premonitions, which are only gradually refined and refined under the inner influence of the human mind. Here, we are told, there really is a communication of divine mysteries, 'mysteries', to which the human mind cannot reach. This 'logos' reveals to the initiate, at the same time, both the inner life of the gods and the way by which he can reach the otherworldly celestial spheres. The dependence of Hermeticism on the mystery religions is undoubtedly evident here, not only in the terminology it borrows from their initiation ritual, but also in the saturation with that "sacred" principle with which they have been enveloping their verbal expressions. Hermeticism includes all this in its mysterious philosophical formulas, but this philosophy itself has an increasing tendency to become soteriology, a doctrine of salvation. {}