The current teaching in the Church concerning the relationship of the Spiritual or Mystical to the Literal Sense of the Scriptures is based on a synthesis arrived at by the Scholastics, and in particular on St Thomas’s formulations, which all our text-books merely set out to expound. It would seem a great advantage to possess a satisfactory technical solution of this age-long biblical issue. One might have hoped that it would have led to a general understanding and utilisation of the two Senses as being not only not in rivalry, but as being related together in the way that spiritual and literal are related together in the Scriptures; that is to say, in a union as harmonious and essential as that of the soul to the body. But no such general benefit has in fact resulted. These Senses have continued to be treated as rival claimants for consideration; with favour accorded sometimes to the Spiritual, sometimes to the Literal —but mostly, in these last centuries, to the Literal. At the present time there is a strong general tendency to depreciate the Spiritual Sense; to treat it as an extraneous addition to the Literal Sense, of definitely inferior quality. Frequently in practice it is identified with what is known as the Accommodated Sense, and accordingly denied any strict biblical validity. Or at least it is generally regarded as being of secondary importance; the Literal Sense being taken as capable of supplying all the meaning that is required for the purposes of theology and of sound edification, while the Spiritual is regarded as a luxury at the disposal of those who have a taste for deciphering pious symbols.

The present Holy Father wrote his biblical encyclical in 1943 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Leo XIII’s great encyclical Providentissimus Deus, which is such a landmark in modern biblical studies. Pius XII starts with a retrospect, a review of the work done under papal aegis during that half-century, and it is with pride that we Dominicans have noticed that he calls attention to the fact that before ever Leo XIII launched his encyclical he had already in 1892 commended by Brief the Dominican Ecole Biblique at Jerusalem, founded with papal approbation two years before. This foundation was due to the efforts of P&re Marie-Joseph Lagrange, O.P. (+10 March, 1938), and here the pioneer work of scientific scholarship had already begun and the famous Revue Biblique had already been started. Next year, in 1893, Providentissimus Deus appeared.

Pius XII goes on to describe the present state of biblical studies and to prescribe the equipment necessary to the modern Catholic exegete. Not only does he develop the ideas of the preceding encyclicals, but several times he gives more precise definitions of the attitude of the Catholic scholar.

He concludes with a reiteration of his predecessors’ call for zeal for scriptural study, with a special urgency “in these unhappy times” when ignorance of Christ is so widespread in the world.

It is noteworthy that in 1943, when the whole world was embroiled in war, the Holy See issued an Encyclical letter on Biblical studies and the opportune means of promoting them. Much stress is laid on new efforts, certainly, but also on new preoccupations, new investigations, new orientations, in a word, on the changed conditions of Biblical study, ‘for deeper archaeological research has given rise to new questions offering occasion for a closer investigation of the subject’. Indeed, we are urged to pay close attention to archaeological findings; ‘Archaeology’, or its equivalent, is referred or appealed to some six or seven times and unquestionably holds a high place among the many endowments expected of those whose duty it is to make known the Biblical authors’ meanings.

And so a note on some recent Biblical archaeology will not seem out of place.

Writers on Biblical archaeology like to refer to ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ evidence about Biblical narratives; and it is usually said that very few finds bear directly on the Bible, whereas the indirect contribution is very rich. But this division into ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ seems fruitless and unessential; rather should we say that any little information, from any source whatever, however tenuous, if it throws light on the sacred text, is to be highly prized, and ‘receives an added and nobler dignity, a consecration as it were, when it is used to shed a brighter light on divine things’. It is true no doubt that we must widen the term ‘Archaeology’ and bring in considerations of topography, history, and in fact anything illustrative; possibly ‘sacred antiquities’ would describe better that ensemble of findings which help us to know the mind of the inspired writer and the way in which he expressed it.

The realisation of the significance of Harappa and the excavation of Mohenjo Daro are events of outstanding importance in the progress of archaeology during the last fifty years. Harappa, a very old town- site in the Montgomery District of the Punjab, has been known for some time and a few small softstone seals and other objects have been found. Only gradually did it become clear that these remains had no relation to any other civilization of India. Harappa had suffered for many years from the inroads of brick-robbers and offered, by itself, little prospect of further significant information. The enthusiasm of Sir John Marshall led to the search for other sites of a similar nature. In 1922 such a site was discovered in the lower valley of the River Indus in the Province of Sind, south of the Baluchistan frontier. Since then other sites have been found and it has been possible to estimate, to some extent, the territorial expansion of an entirely unknown civilization which had attained an exceedingly high degree of development.

Most of the work has centred round Mohanjo Daro, the site discovered in 1922, and, with the exception of Harappa, a great deal remains to be done before the full significance of the other sites can be made known. Such conclusions as have been reached are based mainly upon the excavations in Mohanjo Daro and to a lesser, though important degree, upon the findings in Harappa. That we have at present only a very unsatisfactory picture, is obvious from the opinion of Marshall that the Monhanjo Daro culture extended from beyond Harappa to the mouth of the Indus ‘in a south-easterly direction at least as far as the Gulf of Cambay. ‘

There are before me three books: The Scripture Textbooks for Catholic Schools, edited by Mgr John M. T. Barton, and published by Burns Oates and Washbourne. They are uniform and each costs 4/6. The binding is very good for the price.

The foreword by Cardinal Griffin states the fundamental point: ‘So many people are taught all about the Scriptures, but few are taught to read them’. That set me thinking. It is certain that an inconsiderable number do read the New Testament. Our aim is to persuade them. There is no need for persuasion with the children; they take what is given them by their masters. So the first question arises: do three more books on the New Testament make it more or less likely that the people who read them will read the New Testament itself? Many times I have set about reading, particularly the Old Testament, and found myself very soon reading a commentary instead. Will these books have the same effect on the children?

To begin with the Lives of our Lord. One is for small children, but is so written that it could be read with pleasure by a person of any age; the other is for school children in their teens. The method employed in both is to make a straightforward account of the life of our Lord drawn from all four Gospels, with occasional digressions and enlargements on local history, geography, liturgy, and so on. They both read easily and have a telling style, but not so telling as that of the New Testament writers, for these have a brevity and economy of words truly breath-taking, while the use of direct speech in the New Testament is so much more suitable to children than the indirect which both these authors favour. Nothing pleases children more than the dramatic style.