Two Presidents' Bibles; Pope Francis on St. Jerome and the Bible

This can't be a coincidence: Pope Francis issues an Apostolic Letter, Scripturae Sacrae Affectus (Devotion to Sacred Scripture) on September 30, 2020, the 1600th anniversary of the death of St. Jerome, the great biblical scholar, hermit, and translator of the Holy Bible. Then on October 1, I see two Bible related items in the Wall Street Journal: a review of The Jefferson Bible, a book about President Thomas Jefferson's editing of the four Gospels, by Peter Manseau, senior curator of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History and an advertisement for a new edition of the Protestant version of the New Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible, annotated by President Jimmy Carter, titled the Simple Faith Bible!

First, a few excerpts from Pope Francis's letter:

Devotion to sacred Scripture, a “living and tender love” for the written word of God: this is the legacy that Saint Jerome bequeathed to the Church by his life and labours. Now, on the sixteen hundredth anniversary of his death, those words taken from the opening prayer of his liturgical Memorial[1] give us an essential insight into this outstanding figure in the Church’s history and his immense love for Christ. That “living and tender love” flowed, like a great river feeding countless streams, into his tireless activity as a scholar, translator and exegete. Jerome’s profound knowledge of the Scriptures, his zeal for making their teaching known, his skill as an interpreter of texts, his ardent and at times impetuous defence of Christian truth, his asceticism and harsh eremitical discipline, his expertise as a generous and sensitive spiritual guide – all these make him, sixteen centuries after his death, a figure of enduring relevance for us, the Christians of the twenty-first century.

From the section "Love for Sacred Scripture":

The distinctive feature of Saint Jerome’s spirituality was undoubtedly his passionate love for the word of God entrusted to the Church in sacred Scripture. All the Doctors of the Church – particularly those of the early Christian era – drew the content of their teaching explicitly from the Bible. Yet Jerome did so in a more systematic and distinctive way.

Exegetes in recent times have come to appreciate the narrative and poetic genius of the Bible and its great expressive quality. Jerome instead emphasized in sacred Scripture the humble character of God’s revelation, set down in the rough and almost primitive cadences of the Hebrew language in comparison to the refinement of Ciceronian Latin. He devoted himself to the study of sacred Scripture not for aesthetic reasons, but – as is well known – only because Scripture had led him to know Christ. Indeed, ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.[28]

Jerome teaches us that not only should the Gospels and the apostolic Tradition present in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Letters be studied and commented on, but that the entire Old Testament is indispensable for understanding the truth and the riches of Christ.[29]The Gospel itself gives evidence of this: it speaks to us of Jesus as the Teacher who appeals to Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms (cf. Lk 4:16-21; 24:27.44-47) in order to explain his own mystery. The preaching of Peter and Paul in the Acts of the Apostles is likewise rooted in the Old Testament, apart from which we cannot fully understand the figure of the Son of God, the Messiah and Saviour. Nor should the Old Testament be thought of merely as a vast repertoire of citations that prove the fulfilment of the ancient prophecies in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Rather, only in light of the Old Testament prefigurements is it possible to know more profoundly the meaning of the Christ event as revealed in his death and resurrection. Today we need to rediscover, in catechesis and preaching, as well as in theological exposition, the indispensable contribution of the Old Testament, which should be read and digested as a priceless source of spiritual nourishment (cf. Ez 3:1-11; Rev 10:8-11).[30]

And finally, from the section "The Study of Sacred Scripture":

Biblical passages are not always immediately accessible. As Isaiah said (29:11), even for those who know how to “read” – that is, those who have had a sufficient intellectual training – the sacred book appears “sealed”, hermetically closed to interpretation. A witness is needed to intervene and provide the key to its liberating message, which is Christ the Lord. He alone is able to break the seal and open the book (cf. Rev 5:1-10) and in this way unveil its wondrous outpouring of grace (Lk 4:17-21). Many, even among practising Christians, say openly that they are not able to read it (cf. Is 29:12), not because of illiteracy, but because they are unprepared for the biblical language, its modes of expression and its ancient cultural traditions. As a result the biblical text becomes indecipherable, as if it were written in an unknown alphabet and an esoteric tongue.

This shows the need for the mediation of an interpreter, who can exercise a “diaconal” function on behalf of the person who cannot understand the meaning of the prophetic message. Here we think of the deacon Philip, sent by the Lord to approach the chariot of the eunuch who was reading a passage from Isaiah (53:7-8), without being able to unlock its meaning. “Do you understand what you are reading?” asked Philip, and the eunuch replied: “How can I, unless someone guides me?” (Acts 8:30-31).[32]

Jerome can serve as our guide because, like Philip (cf. Acts 8:35), he leads every reader to the mystery of Jesus, while responsibly and systematically providing the exegetical and cultural information needed for a correct and fruitful reading of the Scriptures.[33] In an integrated and skilful way he employed all the methodological resources available in his day – competence in the languages in which the word of God was handed down, careful analysis and examination of manuscripts, detailed archeological research, as well as knowledge of the history of interpretation – in order to point to a correct understanding of the inspired Scriptures.

I certainly recommend you read the entire letter.

So we might say that The Jefferson Bible and Jimmy Carter's annotation of the Simple Faith Bible propose two Presidents of the United States of America as guides to interpreting the Sacred Scriptures.

In Crawford Cribben's WSJ review of Peter Manseau's The Jefferson Bible, Cribben suggests that Jefferson may not be a reliable guide as he notes that Jefferson not only removed all the miraculous healings from his version of the four Gospels, but he excised "any discussion of repentance and forgiveness". Thus, Jefferson proposes a moral standard without any recourse once one fails to live up to it--which Cribben notes Jefferson needed himself, given "his relationship with his slave Sally Hemmings" and "the paternity of her children." (Jefferson's hairs found in the original volume provided conclusive DNA evidence.)

Cribben further cites Manseau's comment that "Jefferson's Jesus stories are all set up with no pay off." . . . "Time and again, Jesus indicates that he might be able to perform a miracle of some kind, and then does nothing." Not to mention that His Passion and Resurrection could not be part of The Jefferson Bible, and thus not part of Thomas Jefferson's (hidden) message to the new Republic and its citizens. And St. Paul told us what that means to Christians: “If Christ has not been raised, then empty [too] is our preaching; empty, too, your faith ... you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:14-17), as Pope Benedict XVI reminded us in 2008.

This excerpt from Manseau's The Jefferson Bible was published on the Smithsonian Magazine website, describing the rediscovery of Jefferson's work. The Jefferson Bible by Peter Manseau is part of the Princeton University Press Lives of Great Religious Book series.

As to President Jimmy Carter, we know that he has taught Sunday School for decades and meditated upon the meaning of Sacred Scripture and its application to Christian life. You may look inside the Zondervan Simple Faith Bible here. I presume that in many ways, Carter will emphasis the moral standard that Jesus did proclaim but also reflect on Jesus as Our Savior and Resurrected Redeemer, as this passage indicates reflecting on Matthew 3:1–2:

Pause for a moment and consider what John [the Baptist] meant by the words kingdom of heaven. The Pharisees and Sadducees distinguished God’s kingdom as something far in the distance or something with elements of punishment for sins. So here John the Baptist uses kingdom of heaven as a phrase designed to alert the people. He wanted them to see that they needed to repent in the present because the kingdom of heaven was already in their midst.

We live in the midst of the kingdom of heaven now, just as John did in the time of Christ. The kingdom of heaven is a continuing history of human beings and our relationship and reconciliation with God through faith in Jesus Christ. Everything now and in days past and in years ahead is under the sovereignty of God. Human beings are designed to live in God’s kingdom. And we can be part of the kingdom of heaven if we separate ourselves from the morals and customs and demands of the secular world and align ourselves with God through faith in Jesus.

"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ."--St. Jerome

Image Credit (public domain) Pinturicchio's St. Jerome in the desert

St. Robert Bellarmine and the Declaration of Independence

Matthew Bunson, formerly editor of OSV's The Catholic Answer Magazine, writes now for EWTN's National Catholic Register. One of his first contributions is this editorial:

On the day that the Continental Congress approved its resolution for independence for the American colonies, July 2, 1776, John Adams wrote Patrick Henry, “The decree is gone forth, and it cannot be recalled, that a more equal liberty than has prevailed in other parts of the earth must be established in America.”

The formal Declaration of Independence that was approved two days later was a masterful statement of the rights of men in an age of royal absolutism.

It also had deep Catholic roots.

At a time when many Americans have lost touch with both the historical and philosophical foundations of the United States, Independence Day — July 4th — is always a good opportunity to reflect on the particular genius of our Founding Founders and the influences that shaped their thought and actions.

But any discussion of genius and influence must include two names, one the author of the Declaration of Independence and the other a doctor of the Church.

Thomas Jefferson is honored rightly as one of the greatest minds in American history, who bequeathed to his country a statement of principles that began the extraordinary experiment of the American republic. It is surprising to learn, then, that a careful study of the Declaration reveals striking parallels between Jefferson’s eloquent appeal to the unalienable rights of men and self-determination and the Church’s teachings on the human person and a properly ordered society. In fact, nearly two centuries before Jefferson, his very same ideas were written by a Counter-Reformation Catholic of equal genius: the Jesuit theologian, saint, cardinal and doctor of the Church Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621).

Bunson then compares Bellarmine's De Laicis on civil government and some passages in the Declaration of Independence and notes that Jefferson indeed know of St. Robert Bellarmine's ideas because he read Patriarcha: The Naturall Power of Kinges Defended Against the Unnatural Liberty of the People, By Arguments, Theological, Rational, Historical and Legall by Robert Filmer, a Protestant theologian defending King James I's idea of the Divine Right of Kings.

Read the rest there.

British and Colonial Anti-Popery

Reflecting on Guy Fawkes day in colonial America, author and politician Daniel Hannon makes these surprising comments in The Catholic Herald--surprising in that a culture that feared Catholicism (Papistry/Popery) as inimical to freedom and liberty yet realized that religious freedom was necessary and that Catholics must be able to practice their faith:

Guy Fawkes Night used to be popular in North America, especially in Massachusetts. We have excised that fact from our collective memory, as we have more generally the bellicose anti-Catholicism that powered the American Revolution. We tell ourselves that the argument was about “No taxation without representation” and, for some, it was. But while constitutional questions obsessed the pamphleteering classes whose words we read today, the masses were more exercised by the perceived threat of superstition and idolatry that had sparked their ancestors’ hegira across the Atlantic in the first place. They were horrified by the government’s decision, in 1774, to recognise the traditional rights of the Catholic Church in Quebec.

To many Nonconformists, it seemed that George III was sending the popish serpent after them into Eden. As the First Continental Congress put it in its resolutions: “The dominion of Canada is to be so extended that by their numbers daily swelling with Catholic emigrants from Europe, and by their devotion to Administration, so friendly to their religion, they might become formidable to us, and on occasion, be fit instruments in the hands of power, to reduce the ancient free Protestant Colonies to the same state of slavery with themselves.”

Puritans and Presbyterians saw Anglicanism, with its stately communions and surplices and altar rails, as more than half allied to Rome. There had been a furious reaction in the 1760s when the Archbishop of Canterbury sought to bring the colonists into the fold. Thomas Secker, who had been born a Dissenter, and had the heavy-handed zeal of a convert, had tried to set up an Anglican missionary church in, of all places, Cambridge, Massachusetts, capital of New England Congregationalism. He sought to strike down the Massachusetts Act, which allowed for Puritan missionary work among the Indians and, most unpopular of all, to create American bishops.

The ministry backed off, but trust was never recovered. As the great historian of religion in America, William Warren Sweet, put it: “Religious strife between the Church of England and the Dissenters furnished the mountain of combustible material for the great conflagration, while the dispute over stamp, tea and other taxes acted merely as the matches of ignition.”

John Adams is remembered today as a humane and decent man – which he was. We forget that he earnestly wondered: “Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?” Thomas Jefferson’s stirring defences of liberty move us even now. Yet he was convinced that “in every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”

Americans had, as so often, distilled to greater potency a tendency that was present throughout the English-speaking world: an inchoate but strong conviction that Catholicism threatened freedom. Daniel Defoe talked of “a hundred thousand country fellows prepared to fight to the death against Popery, without knowing whether it be a man or a horse”. Anti-Catholicism was not principally doctrinal: few people were much interested in whether you believed in priestly celibacy or praying for the souls of the dead. Rather, it was geopolitical. . . .

And here’s the almost miraculous thing: they ended up creating a uniquely individualist culture that endured when religious practice waned. Adams and Jefferson led the first state in the world based on true religious freedom (as opposed to toleration). From a spasm of sectarianism came, paradoxically, pluralism. And, once it had come, it held on. “I never met an English Catholic who did not value, as much as any Protestant, the free institutions of his country,” wrote an astonished Tocqueville.

The title of Daniel Hannan's forthcoming book is Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World--I wonder how he will interpret the so-called Glorious Revolution? Will he acknowledge James II and the campaign for religious toleration and freedom of conscience or will he repeat the old canards about William and Mary invading to defeat tyranny?