This post is an excerpt from the forthcoming book Rome Examined: Examination of the Decrees of the Council of Trent. In this concise distillation of Chemnitz’s magisterial critique, we present his scriptural case against Rome’s decrees on tradition, justification, the sacraments, and papal authority—one section at a time. (Find all the excerpts here: https://wolfmueller.co/category/rome-examined/)
1:8: On the Interpretation of Holy Scripture
On the Need for and Manner of Biblical Interpretation
[1] The salutary use of Scripture consists not in words that are not understood, but rather in their true meaning and their proper understanding. Many passages of Scripture are so clear that they explain themselves and, to speak like Augustine, they grant free access to the learned and unlearned alike.[1] In the clear passages of Scripture are the main substance for faith and life. Besides this, there are many difficulties in Scripture. Many passages have an obscure meaning which not everyone can immediately decipher. But God has given the gift of interpretation for the obscurities in Scripture not as a general one, but as a specific one in the church, just as He gave Phillip to the Ethiopian eunuch.
[2] Clearly, no one relies upon their own intelligence when interpreting Scripture, not even with the clear passages. For we hear in 2 Peter 1:20 that no Scripture arises from one’s own interpretation. But the best reader of the Bible, according to Hilary, is the one who does not read preconceived meaning into the Bible but rather takes meaning out of it. Thankfully, we make use of the work of the fathers for the explanation of Scripture. Furthermore, those interpretations which oppose all of antiquity and have almost no testimony from the church in support of themselves seem questionable to us.
Four Issues Inherent in Trent’s Decrees concerning Biblical Interpretation
[3] The Tridentine decrees exhibit an ambiguous generality. Nevertheless, there are four particular points of dispute that are allusively between the lines, which emerge openly elsewhere.
[4] First, they bind the gift of interpretation to the episcopal office. The explanations of every bishop, no matter how procured, ought to be regarded as fully valid and final on account of the office. The pope, however forgetful and preoccupied he may be, harbors all right in the shrine of his heart.
His will shall be accepted when he changes the sacraments, contravenes the epistles of Paul, and so on. This is fundamentally perverted. In 1 Corinthians 12:11, Paul says concerning the gift of interpretation, “The one and the same Spirit works all of these things and distributes to each one as he wishes.” The entire history of the Old Testament shows that God often did not take the prophets from the priestly caste but raised them up from different estates and made them interpreters of his will.
[5] Second, out of the gift of interpretation, the papists create an unrestricted verdict of power. They completely refrain from a reasonable justification of their explanation and desire us to immediately swear on their understanding of the law without examination or inspection. How differently Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 5:19–21: “Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophecy; but test everything and hold fast to what is good.” (Consider the daily study of the Scriptures by the Bereans in Acts 17:11–12; the instruction for the treasurer in Acts 8:31; the right counsel concerning obscure speech in 1 Corinthians 14:29–30; the promise of the Spirit in Luke 11:13; the examination of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 2:15; Ephesians 1:17–18, 3:16–17; Philippians 1:9–11; Colossians 1:9–10; Psalm 119 on the illumination of the Spirit). Augustine shows us how the obscure passages of Scripture find their light in the clear ones.[2] He differentiates (in On the Profit of Believing, ch. 2) four kinds of interpretation: historical interpretation; grammatical interpretation; interpretation based on congruence with the rest of Scripture; figurative-allegorical interpretation.[3]
[6] With interpretation, therefore, absolute authority ought not to be decided, but rather certain principles. The church has the right and freedom to judge.
[7] Third, when the papists have distorted a statement according to their errors, they fall into the misuse of assembling random passages from the fathers in defense. The explanations of the ancients should then be held as authoritative, even though the fathers in no way desired to bind readers to their interpretation. Neither Origen nor Augustine are inclined to do so, and also Jerome does not wish for his explanations to be held as oracles.
[8] Fourth, the papists assume the right, even in the clearest passages, to deviate from the true, simple, and actual sense and with unbridled authority to insert a different meaning. When Christ says, for example, “Drink from it, all of you,” they reverse it to: “Not all, but only the priests.” Thus, Osius says, “If someone has the explanation of the Roman church concerning a passage of Scripture, then he has therein the pure essence of the Word of God, even if he does not yet understand if and how the explanation accords with Scripture.”
[9] Andrada speaks many words about shrouded faith, which is convinced by the truth of Scripture’s content in general, without understanding every detail. About this there is no dispute between us. But he knows well that under this idea of shrouded faith the Romans understand a forced submission to the judgment of the church. Therefore, his speech is subtle. The simple faith of the laity, which adheres to the fundamentals and principal parts, such as the Law, faith, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, is not the concealed faith of the papists. What they desire is this, servile delusion, which stands on the decrees of man. Even the simplest faith of the laity is not permitted to be without God’s Word. Augustine describes the proper form of scriptural instruction for the laity according to the degrees of their aptitude. His goal, however, is an introduction into Scripture.
[1] “Consider, moreover, the style in which Sacred Scripture is composed,—how accessible it is to all men, though its deeper mysteries are penetrable to very few. The plain truths which it contains it declares in the artless language of familiar friendship to the hearts both of the unlearned and of the learned; but even the truths which it veils in symbols it does not set forth in stiff and stately sentences, which a mind somewhat sluggish and uneducated might shrink from approaching, as a poor man shrinks from the presence of the rich; but, by the condescension of its style, it invites all not only to be fed with the truth which is plain, but also to be exercised by the truth which is concealed, having both in its simple and in its obscure portions the same truth. Lest what is easily understood should beget satiety in the reader, the same truth being in another place more obscurely expressed becomes again desired, and, being desired, is somehow invested with a new attractiveness, and thus is received with pleasure into the heart. By these means wayward minds are corrected, weak minds are nourished, and strong minds are filled with pleasure, in such a way as is profitable to all. This doctrine has no enemy but the man who, being in error, is ignorant of its incomparable usefulness, or, being spiritually diseased, is averse to its healing power.” – St. Augustine of Hippo, Letter CXXXVII: To Volusianus, Trans. By the Rev. J. G. Cunningham, NPNF1-01, link: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf101.vii.1.CXXXVII.html
[2] Augustine kicks off his second book in this series by discussing the nature of signs and how they signify and point to greater realities. After he’s discussed several kinds of natural signs out in the world as well as conventional signs which human beings use to communicate with one another, he turns to written language, saying that “because words pass away as soon as they strike upon the air, and last no longer than their sound, men have by means of letters formed signs of words.”
In this context, Augustine turns to Scripture and notice what He says about obscure passages in it: “And hence it happened that even Holy Scripture, which brings a remedy for the terrible diseases of the human will, being at first set forth in one language, by means of which it could at the fit season be disseminated through the whole world, was interpreted into various tongues, and spread far and wide, and thus became known to the nations for their salvation. And in reading it, men seek nothing more than to find out the thought and will of those by whom it was written, and through these to find out the will of God, in accordance with which they believe these men to have spoken. But hasty and careless readers are led astray by many and manifold obscurities and ambiguities, substituting one meaning for another; and in some places they cannot hit upon even a fair interpretation. Some of the expressions are so obscure as to shroud the meaning in the thickest darkness. And I do not doubt that all this was divinely arranged for the purpose of subduing pride by toil, and of preventing a feeling of satiety in the intellect, which generally holds in small esteem what is discovered without difficulty. […] Nobody, however, has any doubt about the facts, both that it is pleasanter in some cases to have knowledge communicated through figures and that what is attended with difficulty in the seeking gives greater pleasure in the finding.—For those who seek but do not find suffer from hunger. Those, again, who do not seek at all because they have what they require just beside them often grow languid from satiety. Now weakness from either of these causes is to be avoided. Accordingly the Holy Spirit has, with admirable wisdom and care for our welfare, so arranged the Holy Scriptures as by the plainer passages to satisfy our hunger, and by the more obscure to stimulate our appetite. For almost nothing is dug out of those obscure passages which may not be found set forth in the plainest language elsewhere.” – St. Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Doctrine, Book II, Chapter 6, Link: https://ccel.org/ccel/augustine/doctrine/doctrine.vii_1.html
Notice that, just like us Lutherans, Augustine doesn’t deny the existence of obscure passages: he simply expresses that their meaning is to be unlocked by use of the clearer passages of Scripture – which contain the same truths, more plainly stated. And he actually provides a reasoning for this: the Holy Spirit arranges the Scriptures in this way so as to keep us from spiritual laziness and drawing us in with a hunt that ends up satiating our intellect with a hard-won spiritual feast waiting at the end of it. A couple of chapters later in this same book, after he has provided his own enumeration of the books of Scripture, St. Augustine expresses this exact same truth again because he really wants to make sure that his readers don’t miss it:
“In all these books [of the Holy Scriptures] those who fear God and are of a meek and pious disposition seek the will of God. And in pursuing this search the first rule to be observed is, as I said, to know these books, if not yet with the understanding, still to read them so as to commit them to memory, or at least so as not to remain wholly ignorant of them. Next, those matters that are plainly laid down in them, whether rules of life or rules of faith, are to be searched into more carefully and more diligently; and the more of these a man discovers, the more capacious does his understanding become. For among the things that are plainly laid down in Scripture are to be found all matters that concern faith and the manner of life,—to wit, hope and love, of which I have spoken in the previous book. After this, when we have made ourselves to a certain extent familiar with the language of Scripture, we may proceed to open up and investigate the obscure passages, and in doing so draw examples from the plainer expressions to throw light upon the more obscure, and use the evidence of passages about which there is no doubt to remove all hesitation in regard to the doubtful passages.” – St. Augustine of Hippo, On Christian Doctrine, Book II, Chapter 9, link: https://ccel.org/ccel/augustine/doctrine/doctrine.x_1.html
[3] “All that Scripture therefore, which is called the Old Testament, is handed down fourfold to them who desire to know it, according to history, according to ætiology, according to analogy, according to allegory. Do not think me silly for using Greek words. In the first place, because I have so received, nor do I dare to make known to you otherwise than I have received. Next you yourself perceive, that we have not in use terms for such things: and had I translated and made such, I should have been indeed more silly: but, were I to use circumlocution, I should be less free in treating: this only I pray you to believe, that in whatever way I err, I am not inflated or swollen in anything that I do. Thus (for example) it is handed down according to history, when there is taught what has been written, or what has been done; what not done, but only written as though it had been done. According to ætiology, when it is shown for what cause anything has been done or said. According to analogy, when it is shown that the two Testaments, the Old and the New, are not contrary the one to the other. According to allegory, when it is taught that certain things which have been written are not to be taken in the letter, but are to be understood in a figure.” – Augustine of Hippo, On the Profit of Believing, §5, NPNF1-03, link: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1306.htm
